


Catching Fire and Burning Down

by goldenslumber



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut, Pregnant Katniss Everdeen, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:28:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29234562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenslumber/pseuds/goldenslumber
Summary: Catching Fire Pregnant Katniss Everdeen. New CF Arena.I look up at him, surprised by the pain in his voice. “Do you miss it?” I ask. I thought of the lingering touches, the meaningless kisses, the arena. Part of me is consumed with guilt and another, much smaller part, is reminiscent.“I cannot say I miss the lies,” Peeta whispers.He does not miss the fighting, the death, or my kisses.I attempt to stand, hating his answer, but one of my knees buckles. Peeta rushes forward, steadying me.“I should take you home,” he says.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 34
Kudos: 104





	1. Chapter 1

I run across the yard, the evening dew soaking through my socks. I clutch a bleeding hand to my chest. I cannot say exactly why I chose to shatter the window of the cellar underneath the empty victor's house, but that is behind me. All I can do now is sprint and try to outdo Peeta.

For once in my life, I want to be better than Peeta.

To do that, I have to talk to Haymitch before he does. Peeta will without a doubt ask Haymitch to promise to stay in District 12 while allowing Peeta to follow me into yet another arena and this time to never come back.

I crash through Haymitch's front door, then stagger towards the only illumination in the entire house. He is sitting alone at the kitchen table a half-empty bottle of white liquor in one fist, his knife in the other.

“Ah, there she is. All tuckered out. Finally did the math, did you, sweetheart?” he says. “Worked out you won't be going in alone? And now you're here to ask me… what exactly?”

The window on the far side of the room is open. The air chills me. I breathe heavily from the run, but that is not why I lower my head and eyes. Drops of blood fall from my hand, spotting the kitchen floor.

I have hit a wall. I want to turn back. I should find my mother and my sister to comfort them. They need me now, not this drunken fool. This spiteful man sitting before me has done nothing but spit disapproval and sarcasm at me since the Victory Tour and he does not need me.

“I'll admit,” Haymitch starts, “it was easier for the boy. He was here before I could snap the seal on a bottle. Begging me for another chance to go in. But what can you say?” He mimics my voice: “Take his place, Haymitch, because all things being equal, I'd rather Peeta had a crack at the rest of his life than you?”

I bite my cheek, because once he has said it, I know that it is true.

Except, is that really what I want? For Peeta to live and for Haymitch to die?

Haymitch is dreadful, of course, but he’s family now. I cannot ask him do this. The selfishness is back – but, no… the selfishness has never left me. There is no excuse for me to demand such a thing from him. His life is no less worthy than Peeta's.

Peeta has outdone me, again.

What do I tell Haymitch? What could I have possibly wanted by coming here?

"I came for a drink," I finally say.

Haymitch bursts out laughing and slams the bottle on the table before me. I run a blood-free sleeve across the top of it and take a couple gulps before I come up choking. It goes down burning. It takes me a few minutes to compose myself, and even then, my eyes and nose are still streaming.

“Maybe it should be you,” I say, trying to sound matter of fact. I could feel the alcohol burn through my chest and sear across the skin of my face. “You hate life, after all.”

“Very true,” says Haymitch. “And since last time I tried to keep you alive... seems like I'm obligated to save the boy this time.”

“That's another good point,” I say, taking a long drink from the bottle.

“Peeta's argument is that since I chose you, I now owe him. Anything he wants. And what he wants is the chance to go in again to protect you.”

I knew that. Peeta is predictable. While I was wallowing away on the floor of that cellar, thinking of myself, he was here, thinking only of me. Shame is not a strong enough word for what I feel.

“You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know,” Haymitch says.

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, but the thought hangs over me. It has always been there. How could a person accept something they do not deserve? “No question, he's the superior one in this trio. So, what are you going to do?”

“I don't know,” he says. “Go back in with you maybe, if I can. If my name's drawn at the reaping, it won't matter. He'll just volunteer to take my place.”

We sit in silence, while the thought continues to nag at me. Maybe he is right, maybe I'll never deserve Peeta no matter what I try.

“It'd be bad for you in the arena, wouldn't it? Knowing all the others?" I ask.

“Oh, I think we can count on it being unbearable wherever I am.” He nods at the bottle, clenched in my fist. “Can I have that back now?”

“No.”

Haymitch shrugs and pulls another bottle out from under the table. He gives the top a twist and swings it back. As he does that, I realize I cannot be here just for a drink.

“I have figured out what I want. If it has to be Peeta and me in the Games, this time we try to keep him alive, okay?”

The question contains no selfishness, no sacrifice. I feel satisfaction for a mere second, until I see something flicker across Haymitch's bloodshot eyes: pain.

“Like you said, it is going to be bad no matter how you slice it. And whatever Peeta wants, it's his turn to be saved. We both owe him that.” The words come out pleading and slurred. “Besides, the Capitol hates me so much, I'm as good as dead now. Peeta might still have a chance. Please Haymitch. Say you'll help me.”

“All right,” he says after a long pause.

Just like that I can breathe again.

“Thanks,” I say.

I want to go see Peeta, I think, but my head is spinning from the liquor. I _should_ be with my family, but the thought of facing my mother and Primrose is much worse. Besides, if all selfishness has actually been shed, I should check on him.

I step away from the table, taking the bottle with me. I tangle my bleeding hand into the bottom of my shirt. I do not say goodbye, but simply stagger my way out of the house and across the yard. I pass the front of my place and I can see shadows across the drawn curtains of the front window. There are more than just the two I expect, and I know Gale must be there.

Another obstacle I do not want to tackle. I do not want a crying Primrose to coddle, a furious Gale pacing at my back and the shadow of the deaf and blind woman my mother used to be sitting in the den. The thought has my stomach turning.

I hurry across the yard towards Peeta's front steps.

I have trouble turning the doorknob, but when the door finally swings open, I wander through the front parlor and enter the empty kitchen. I did not think to knock or ring the bell, so I am not surprised that he did not come running but what I do not expect is that there is no sign of Peeta.

I call out to him, but there is no answer.

Where would he go? Home, to his family? This makes sense. He would go to comfort his loved ones, when I could not do the same for mine.

It is almost enough to make me turn around and check on them, but I just want this one night, one more hour. Enough time to accept that I am going back. Back, to the arena. Into hell one more time and this time not to come out. President Snow will have most likely ordered me to be put to death this time around and my chances of winning are as low as they had been for Primrose when she was reaped.

I am going back, to die.

The thought brings the bottle back to my lips for another long draught.

I stumble upstairs. At the top, I see a door half open and a stream of light falls across the hallway. I move toward it, hoping I am wrong and that maybe Peeta is home.

I push through the door. My eyes sweep the room: the empty bed of tangled blankets, the dark bathroom to the side, the closet door left wide open. Nothing.

There is a canvass set up next to his bed. There are other paintings scattered across the floor and a mess of spilt paint laying underneath them. I step around them carefully, wondering what happened. On the canvass is an unfinished painting with the beginnings of the horizon and green paint in the allure of treetops.

After a moment of deliberation, I reach out to flip over one of the paintings.

I stop to think that I should not be doing this only for a moment. I should not be in his room uninvited. I should not be snooping through his things. Except, my curiosity gets the better of me.

The spilt paint stained the first painting so badly I could not make out what it was. I reach for a second. The second one is clear. It is a painting of Peeta and I.

It is a moment captured from the Hunger Games. Me, lying unconscious and huddled in a sleeping bag. The background is the dark, murky outlines of jutted rocks and even further beyond that a sketch of rain clashing over the entrance. Next to me sits Peeta, slumped against the cave wall, his eyes closed and his face clear of any lines. Only one of his hands is touching me, laying over my forehead and petting back my hair.

I can remember it even now. The coldness of that day was enough to creep into your bones. The terrible ache in my temple from the headwound. The anticipation coiled in my gut for Peeta’s recovery.

But why? The moment is not a particular gruesome one, not like the others he would make of Clove or Cato. So why would it be on the floor?

I reach for another, this time it is of him and I walking through the trees. Him barefoot and me holding my bow, scowling. Then the next, Peeta and I, sitting at the edge of the stream. It continues, all of them, though some are so soaked up in the spilt paint that they're unrecognizable, I know that all of them must be of us.

Suddenly, I stand, pushing through the headrush it gives me and move toward his desk that is overflowing with papers and art supplies. I leaf through his folders and the unorganized stacks. Some are just landscapes, others the sunset, Rue, the mutts, a golden cornucopia sitting in the middle of a clearing, bloody arrows or spears, dark berries.

None on the desk contain me. Those are all on the floor.

Maybe it was an accident, but it does not feel like it was.

Dread and guilt build inside my chest until all I can do is curl up around the liquor bottle I left on the floor.

I decide to wait for Peeta to return and confront him. I want to ask him about what happened here. I need to know, even if it is as awful as I think it is. I can only assume that he does not want to look at these painting anymore because of me.

Perhaps he blames me for the Quarter Quell… for ruining his life?

I do not wait long before I hear the front door slam closed.

I sit up, my head whirling and my stomach churning. I hear something drop downstairs, then hurried footsteps on the stairs. Then, there's Peeta, standing in the doorway.

“Katniss?”

He paces into the room, kneels in front of me, and before I can reply, he takes my hand into his.

“I saw the blood downstairs, on the front door. Are you okay? What happened?”

“I…”

He does not wait. He pulls me to my feet and pushes me down on the edge of his bed.

“Wait,” he says. “I'll get something to clean it.”

I try to tuck my hand away again, but Peeta returns with an armful of supplies and props it up to be cleaned.

“Since when do you drink?” he says, indicating the mostly empty liquor bottle on the floor.

“Since now,” I say. He pulls a particularly large piece of glass from my wound. “Ow!”

“Sorry.” He does not sound apologetic at all. He continues to pick at the glass dutifully.

He rises my hand with rubbing alcohol. The smell makes me dizzy.

There is a foul, yet bitterly sweet taste in the back of my throat. I need water. I move to rise, but as I look down at Peeta, I am distracted. Gray paint streaks the front of his shirt, just like the mess on the floor.

“What happened?” I ask, waving my newly bandaged hand toward the disorder.

“Nothing to worry about,” he says. "They slipped from my hands.” He gathers up the healing supplies and disappears through the bathroom door.

But I know that's not true. His hands are steady from years of cake decorating. “Where were you?”

He calls back through the doorway, “I went to my brother. He was worried. Were you waiting long?”

“No.” My lips feel dry and plump at the same time. I lick them. He is lying, twice now. First about the paintings and then about visiting Haymitch.

Peeta returns wearing a new shirt and pauses halfway across the room. “Katniss, what are you doing here?”

I had intended to check on him, and already he has helped me more than I have him, but I had to come. There are things that only he would understand. Things that my family should never know.

“Haymitch told me what you said,” I tell him.

Peeta frowns. “He did, did he? And I can see he shared a little more than that, too.”

A feral reply comes to mind and sits on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it back. I did not come to fight with him.

“Katniss,” Peeta says, then deliberates.

I look up at him, surprised by the pain in his voice. “Do you miss it?”

I thought of the lingering touches, the meaningless kisses, the arena. Part of me is consumed with guilt and another, much smaller part, is reminiscent.

“I cannot say I miss the lies,” Peeta whispers.

He does not miss the fighting, the death, or my kisses.

I attempt to stand, hating his answer, but one of my knees buckles. Peeta rushes forward, steadying me.

“I should take you home,” he says.

I do not want to go home. There will be Mother and Prim, crying, or worse, catatonic. I do not want that. I try to tell him this, but my mouth has gone dry and the words too jumbled to come out.

Peeta tightens his arm around my waist and begins to pull me towards the door, but I plant my feet. I wrap my arms around his neck. My cheek rests against his collarbone. I can breathe in the inevitable and intoxicating scent of him.

He smells of nutmeg.

My weight threatens to unseat his artificial leg, so Peeta moves his hands and braces them against my lower back.

“Katniss,” Peeta says, uncomfortable. “You need to go. I cannot let you stay here tonight.”

I want to apologize. I have hurt him. I wish through the fog of fire in my veins and the drunkenness of his smell, to tell him that I am grateful for his love. His love provides a comfort to me, for everything, if anything at all. He should know, and he should know that I never meant it to be like this.

The berries were not only because of rebellion, he was a part of it, too.

“Katniss,” Peeta whispers. “You're drunk.”

 _Yes, I know_ , but he is solid, he is real.

I stand before the man who has sacrificed more than his life for me. I cannot simply turn away. I cannot blame it on the alcohol. I _must_ confront this. I have been cruel to him. I cannot just _take, take, take_ – there has to be some give.

“Peeta,” I whisper. I look up at him. His eyes are so blue right now that I struggle to remember what I meant to ask. “Can I show you something?”

“Show me something?” Peeta repeats. “Like what? Where?”

I take his hand and pull him to the door, down the stairs, and outside. Darkness has fallen. The moon is high in the sky. The air is cold but feels like sobriety in my lungs. I do not even slur when I tell him to keep up and stay quiet.

Peeta asks no questions and for that I am grateful. There are no Peacekeepers out. No one in Town or the Seam are in the spirit to celebrate the Quarter Quell. All is deathly silent.

The meadow sprawls out in front of us, welcoming but eerie in its serenity.

The only time Peeta takes pause is when I step up to the electric gate. He gives me a sharp look of uncertainty, but I shake my head to reassure him. If it was on, I would be the first one to turn back, and if I thought that Head Peacekeeper Thread might attempt to lock me out again, then I would never have brought Peeta.

“Trust me,” I say, as I slip underneath the usual place of uprooted fence.

Peeta struggles to get through.

On the other side we only make it a few meters into the forest before Peeta abruptly plants his feet.

“You like it?” I ask, as he looks around himself with wonder.

“Yes," Peeta whispers. “It is different from the arena...”

“That's the thing about not having twenty-three others out to kill you. A place starts to look a lot better and a lot less threatening."

Peeta lowers his gaze to mine. “Twenty-two,” he corrects me. “You only ever had to worry about twenty-two.”

“I know.”

I give him a tour. We take the usual snare trail that Gale and I walk, so I can point out interesting landmarks or familiar trees and bushes. I show him an owl nest near the west edge of our path. He forces me to hold my breath, so I can hear what he did: the soft hoots, of recent spring hatchlings.

Winter is certainly passing quickly, almost as quickly as my life is. Soon, before even the primroses are in full bloom, I will be in an arena awaiting my death.

Peeta leans over a small outcrop. There is a stream that runs down there. Its soft tinkling sound is better than any piano song Madge has ever played for me. The moon is large, silver, and soft, staining the world white and black and precious. It is almost a dream, the way Peeta spins around to beam at me, confessing a wish to draw it.

“Why'd you show me?” he whispers.

“There's more,” I reply.

I lead Peeta to a grassy sward off the path. I tell him to sit and close his eyes.

My father's hunting bow with its freshly polished shine and well-loved dark wooden exterior is right where I left it. There is a single arrow next to it inside of the hollowed log. I return to Peeta and sit across from him. With one hand I place the bow in his lap, with the other I hide the arrow behind my back.

“Can I open my eyes?”

“Yes.”

He carefully examines the bow. “This looks expensive.”

“It was my fathers. The one he used the most. He would polish it after every hunt. He loved that bow very much.”

Peeta nods toward the arm I have behind me. “What else?”

“Something stupid,” I say, pulling it out.

I run a thumb along the feathers, fraying them, but they immediately fall back into place. I feel a heat crawling up my throat. The next words are surprisingly difficult to get out.

"An arrow, the only one that my father has made that I have left. I hid it from Gale. I didn't want to lose it, you know?"

“I think I can understand.”

“It's stupid, I know, it's just an arrow. But…”

“But?” Peeta prompts and I feel him lean in a little closer.

“But it feels like him. He made it...”

That's all I could get out. The words had become harder and harder, until I could not bear to say more, lest I die of humiliation. So, I plucked the bow from his lap and stood swiftly, tucking it and the arrow away from sight.

When I return to Peeta, there is a smile on his face.

“Stop it,” I snap.

“Stop what?”

“Stop…” _Laughing at me? Mocking me?_ “Just stop.”

There is a long pause.

I felt alone with Peeta. Truly, completely alone, with no Panem peering in or President Snow breathing over my shoulder. For the first time ever.

"I wanted to show you my home. My real home,” I say. I lift my head to gaze at him and he holds my eyes steadily. "I feel like I know so much about you, that you've given up everything to me freely and I've just bottled it all up from sight. I just want to let you in, for once. For real. That's why I had to bring you out here, because otherwise, it's not real."

Peeta says nothing, he only stares at me for so long that I look at the ground again, running my bandaged fingers through the grass blades.

“Thank you," Peeta says, softly, finally.

I shrug.

Peeta moves, his hand crawling on top of my fidgeting one. He pulls it gently into his lap and interweaves and unweaves our fingers there.

“There's... a closet in my house. Not the victor one, but my old house, above the bakery. It's full of old things. Just junk really: boxes of silverware my father got when my grandmother died and old pictures of my brothers and I.” Peeta's voice is a whisper, and slowly, infinity slowly, he raises my hand to his face and momentarily rests his lips there. “I used to hide there. When she would get really bad...”

His eyes close. His hot breath fanning across my skin gives me shudders.

“She would never find me there. I used to think that closet was the best place ever, and I still love it, drafty and cold and lonely as it is...”

He pauses.

I move my hand to unfold and rest along the side of his face, and he gives a breathless laugh.

“It's stupid, really.”

“No, it's not stupid.”

"It is.”

Peeta sits up and my hand falls away from his face.

We stare at each other and I feel my stomach withering, thinking again of that day when our eyes briefly met across the school yard; the ugly, purple swollen side of his face.

"You were starving and hunting at the same age,” he says. “You weren't afraid of facing wild dogs or bears. All the while I was hiding in a cupboard. Sounds cowardly to me. You're much braver."

"Not really," I admit. "You didn't run and hide after the Quarter Quell announcement, like I did earlier."

"Doesn't mean I'm not terrified."

I could taste the fear of rejection and of consequence in my mouth.

I regret taking him here, yet at the same time I do not.

I feel vulnerable, the tear that my father's death left in my heart now always in Peeta's sight, forever. He'll always know about the insignificant, but entirely important to me, bow and arrow out here. What if he told someone? Why was it so unbearable to let him know about this weak spot? Why do I want to run and forget him completely, pretend this never happened, but my heart is pounding at the same time?

Without warning, I kiss Peeta.

His lips, pressed firmly against mine, are a surprise. He is warm. A stronger scent of everything I smelt earlier, plus the dirt and the grass and the fresh spring air fill my lungs. It is a smell that makes my stomach drop through my feet. It is a smell that replaces the bitter remains of alcohol in my mouth and supersedes all thought in my mind with an overpowering hunger for more.

Peeta's tongue slips between my lips for a second, jarring me.

I push away, gasping, my face going blood-red. He looks guilty. He tries to pull away, but my fingers tighten around his hand, stalling him.

"You told Haymitch that you want him to save me again," I rush out.

"I can't let you die," Peeta replies, just as fast. "You have something to live for, I don't."

"What do you mean?" I say, my voice sharper now. "'You have nothing to live for?'"

"Your family needs you, Katniss," Peeta says. "I don't want you forgetting how different our circumstances are. If you die, and I live, there's no life for me at all back in District Twelve. You're my whole life. I would never be happy again." I start to object. He puts a finger to my lips. "It's different for you. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard, but there are other people who'd make your life worth living."

My mind is fuzzy and Peeta holds such a strong stare. I think of my family: my mother, my sister, and my pretend cousin Gale. Except, Peeta's intention is clear. Gale really is my family, or will be one day, if I live. There is an expectation to marry him. Peeta's giving me his life and Gale at the same time. He wants me to know I shouldn't ever have doubts about it.

 _Everything_ : that's what Peeta wants me to take from him.

"No one really needs me," Peeta continues to say, and there's no self-pity in his voice. It's true. His family doesn't need him. They will mourn him, as will a handful of friends, but they will get on. Even Haymitch, with the help of a lot of white liquor, will get on.

I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies: me.

"I do," I say. "I need you."

He looks upset. He takes a deep breath as if to begin a long argument, but that's no good, no good at all, because he'll start going on about Prim and my mother and everything and I'll just get confused.

So, before he can talk, I stop his lips with a kiss.

For a minute my eyes are closed and there is nothing but this boy; Peeta. The one I need.

Rustling deep in my soul, there is a fire buried inside me that is rearing to the surface. This burning desire is so new I almost break away. Except a hunger opens up in me at the same time, keeping me in place, and this is not like the Victory Tour kisses. Only once in our first Hunger Games was there anything akin to this, but my head wound got in the way and ended it before I could understand.

This time, there is nothing but us to interrupt us. This kiss is burning me, and even after a few attempts, Peeta gives up on trying to break away.

The sensation inside me grows warmer and spreads out from my chest, down through my body, out along my arms and legs, to the tips my being. Instead of satisfying me, the kisses have the opposite effect, of making my need greater.

I thought I was something of an expert on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind.

After the need for air becomes apparent, Peeta breaks away. His face moves to pivot between my jaw and shoulder almost immediately, his kisses continuing hot and heavy against the side of my neck.

It is so sudden, so new, an embarrassing noise escapes my mouth and Peeta pulls back.

"I'm sorry," he says, flushed. "I didn't..."

"No, it's okay," I say, as breathless as him.

"Katniss," Peeta whispers, his hot breath running down my neck. "You're drunk."

"No," I say, stubbornly. "I'm not, really." I stare at him, trying to convince him. " _Really_."

"Katniss," Peeta warns, "just think."

I am thinking. I am thinking about how new the taste of him is.

I guess I should expect him to be afraid. He trusted me before, during the Games, and it ended up I was only pretending to love him to save myself. Now, Peeta's trained to think that I don't mean anything I do.

“You don't trust me?" I say.

Peeta's expression turns earnest. "We shouldn't be doing this."

My lips are still warm from his kiss. The smell of him burns in my lungs. I want to taste him again, but I shove away this new hunger, swallowing it like a child chokes back bitter medicine.

“Fine," I say. It hurt, a little, for him not to trust me. "Then let's go. I don't even want to be here anymore."

Peeta follows me as I walk away, but he does not utter a single word. The moment we both are inside District 12, safe from the outside and the law, I run across the meadow.

I do not look back. I assume he will make it home. I do not really care.

I stagger up the steps to my house and the front door opens.

Gale pulls me into his arms. "I was wrong. We should have gone when you said," he whispers.

"No," I say. I'm having trouble focusing. My throat tightens, the pressure behind my eyes threatening me with tears. I'm not sure if it's because of Peeta or because over Gale's shoulder, I see my mother and Prim clutching each other in the doorway.

"It's not too late," he says.

We run. They die.

End of discussion.

"Yeah it is."

My knees give way and he's holding me up. A sob escapes my throat. I let him drag me inside to be surrounded by their sorrow.

__

When I wake up the next morning, I barely get to the toilet before the white liquor makes its reappearance.

It burns just as much coming up as it did going down and tastes twice as bad. I'm trembling and sweaty when I finish vomiting, but at least most of the stuff is out of my system. Enough made it into my bloodstream, though, to result in a pounding headache, parched mouth, and boiling stomach. I turn on the shower and stand under the warm water for a minute before I realize I'm still in my underclothes.

I throw the wet undergarments into the sink and pour shampoo on my head.

My hands sting, and that's when I notice the stitches, small and even, across one palm and up the side of the other hand. Vaguely, I remember breaking that glass window last night. Then I think of Peeta and the mediocre bandages that were there before, then all of last night comes rushing in.

It makes me feel restless, unsettled. I remember the kisses, the bow, arrow... that awful closet.

As I towel myself down, I think of that look on his face, when he stared earnestly back at me. When he would not admit that he did not trust me, but I knew. I could tell, and it hurt.

I pull on my robe and head back to bed, ignoring my dripping hair. I climb under the blankets; sure that this is what it must feel like to be poisoned.

The footsteps on the stairs renew my panic from last night. I'm not ready to see my mother and Prim.

I have to pull myself together. I have to be strong. I struggle into an upright position, push my wet hair off my throbbing temples, and brace myself for this meeting.

They appear in the doorway, holding tea and toast, their faces filled with concern. I open my mouth, planning to start off with some kind of joke, and burst into tears.

My mother sits on the side of the bed and Prim crawls right up next to me. They hold me, making quiet soothing sounds, until I am mostly cried out. Then Prim gets a towel and dries my hair, combing out the knots, while my mother coaxes tea and toast into me. They dress me in warm pajamas and layer more blankets on me and I drift off again.

I can tell by the light it's late afternoon when I come around again.

There's a glass of water on my bedside table and I gulp it down thirstily. My stomach and head still feel rocky, but much better than they did earlier.

I rise, dress, and braid back my hair. Before I go down, I pause at the top of the stairs, feeling slightly embarrassed about the way I have handled the news of the Quarter Quell: my erratic flight, drinking with Haymitch, weeping, going into the woods with Peeta. Given the circumstances, I guess I deserve one day of indulgence, but I am glad the cameras weren't here for it.

Downstairs, my mother and Prim embrace me again, but they're not overly emotional.

I know they are holding back.

Looking at Prim's face, it's hard to believe she is the same little duckling I left nine months ago. The combination of that ordeal and all that has followed – the cruelty in the district, the parade of sick and wounded that she often treats by herself if Mother's hands are too full, the new me – these things have aged her years.

Wasn't that what I was trying to prevent? Hadn't I taken her place in the reaping to spare her a dead childhood and an inevitable strain on her hands?

Except, I must admit, that she has grown, too. We're practically the same height now, but that wasn't what made her seem so much older. It is something in her eyes. They're composed, knowledgeable, no longer naïve.

I have to be strong now, more than ever. Stronger than her.

I smile at Prim, weakly, and she returns it with a beam.

"How's school?" This is the only subject I can think of that does not involve the Hunger Games.

"The same. We're learning about the four main types of coal. Lignite, subbituminous, bituminous, and anthracite." Prim still rocks on the tips of her toes, especially when she's trying to remember things, and I think of Rue the same way someone takes a fist in the face. "The coal value is determined by the amount of the carbon it contains... I think."

"That's right," our mother interjects. "Exactly right."

And now I'm thinking of father, and I know Mother is, too, because she stares at the pot of stew in front of her like it's as deep as an ocean.

I know I can't slip away, not now. There's still a reason to fight. I remember Gale's words: if the people have the courage, then there will still be something we can do. There are still things I can do. I don't know what they are yet, but since I started this, I could contribute, surely. I have to remember, even when the fear threatens to swallow me up, that I still must fight.

Whatever I end up being, or doing, or the happenings of these Games, I still have to fight. I have to be strong for the others. It's not too late for Prim, or Rory, or Vick and little Posy. They still have something of themselves. They are better than me, and the remembrance of our lost fathers suddenly rears into my face, knowing they have lost, too, but Prim is ignorant to it, eating her bowl of stew.

I don't know how to help, but for now, I have to be an example.


	2. Chapter 2

After eating with my family, I walk across the lawn to Haymitch’s house. Inside, he is only just waking up and accepts the mug of stew I offer him without comment.

We sit there almost peacefully, watching the sun set through his living room window.

I hear someone walking around upstairs and assume it's Hazelle, but a few minutes later Peeta comes down.

I want to flee, but I settle on scowling at him across the distance as he comes and tosses a cardboard box of empty liquor bottles on the table.

"There, it's done," he says, staring only at Haymitch.

It takes all of Haymitch's effort just to focus his eyes on the bottles.

"What's done?" I ask.

"I've poured all the liquor down the drain."

This jolts Haymitch out of his stupor, and he paws through the box in disbelief. "You what?"

"I tossed the lot," Peeta says.

"He'll just buy more," I mutter.

"No, he won't," says Peeta. "I tracked down Ripper this morning and told her I'd turn her in the second she sold to either of you." _He never wants me drunk again_. "I paid her off, too, just for good measure, but I don't think she's eager to be back in the Peacekeepers' custody."

Haymitch takes a swipe with his knife but Peeta deflects it so easily it's pathetic.

Peeta has managed to not look at me during the whole conversation. Was he angry… or ashamed about what happened last night? Was I not the only one who wanted to forget the whole opening up and sharing stuff?

"What business is it of yours what he does?" I snap.

"It's completely my business. However it falls out, two of us are going in the arena again with the other as a mentor. We can't afford any drunkards on this team. Especially not you, Katniss."

"What?" An indignation I knew I should not have hit me. It would have been more convincing if I wasn't still hung over, but I couldn't help that. "Last night's the only time I've ever been drunk."

"Yeah, and look at the shape you're in," Peeta says right back, looking at me for the first time.

I am the first one to break eye contact.

I don't know what I expected from him after my race to get away last night.

I turn to Haymitch. "Don't worry, I'll get you more liquor."

I say it in spite of the blonde boy, just to show him that I won't be weak to this.

"Then I'll turn you both in. Let you sober up in the stocks."

"What's the point to this?" asks Haymitch.

"The point is that two of us are coming home from the Capitol. One mentor and one victor," says Peeta. "Effie's sending me recordings of all the living victors. We're going to watch their Games and learn everything we can about how they fight. We're going to put on weight and get strong. We're going to start acting like Careers. One of us is going to be victor again whether you two like it or not!" He sweeps out of the room, slamming the front door.

Haymitch and I wince at the bang.

"I don't like self-righteous people," I say.

"What's to like?" says Haymitch, who begins sucking the dregs out of the empty bottles.

"You and me. That's who he plans on coming home."

"Well, then the jokes on him," says Haymitch.

I eventually get up and walk over to Peeta's house. This time, I knock, and it takes a few minutes before Peeta answers.

"If you're coming over to argue, don't bother," he says as he opens the door, but that's all he has time to get out before I step forward and kiss him.

Peeta pulls away almost instantly. "What are you doing?"

"How am I supposed to gain your trust?" I ask. "When you can't even look me in the face?"

He is still flustered by the kiss. "That was nothing. I thought you were still angry... you don't want me to back off?"

"No, that's not the point," I say, frustrated. "If we're the ones in the arena together don't you think it's important that you trust me and that I know you do?"

"I do trust you," Peeta says, and makes that sound like it's been really very obvious.

I weigh that for a moment, then turn and leap down his front steps. I hear the door close just as I open mine and go in search for my sister. There are only so many weeks I have left with her and I should not waste them trying to puzzle out what has always been a mystery to me.

After a few days, Haymitch and I agree to act like Careers, because this is the best way to get Peeta ready as well.

Every night we watch the old recaps of the Games that the remaining victors won.

I realize we never met any of them on the Victory Tour, which seems odd in retrospect. When I bring it up, Haymitch says the last thing President Snow would've wanted was to show Peeta and I – especially me – bonding with other victors in potentially rebellious districts.

Adjusting for age, I also realize some of our opponents may be elderly, which is both sad and reassuring.

Peeta takes notes, Haymitch volunteers information on the victors' personalities, and slowly we begin to know our competition.

Every morning we do exercises to strengthen our bodies. We run and lift things and stretch our muscles. Every afternoon we work on combat skills, throwing knives, fighting hand to hand; I even teach them to climb trees.

On top of all the training, there is the tension. I am unsure if Haymitch notices it, because after so many years of abuse his body resists improvement and he's paddling to keep up with us as it is. A few extra glances or talks between Peeta and I go below his radar. He has not noticed that anytime Peeta and I are within a few feet of each other, he gets irritable and I get snappy.

Otherwise, Peeta and I excel under the new regimen. It gives me something to do. It gives us all something to do besides accept defeat. My mother puts us on a special diet to gain weight. Prim treats our sore muscles. Madge sneaks us her father's Capitol newspapers with its predictions on who will be victor.

Even Gale steps into the picture on Sundays, although he's got no love for Peeta or Haymitch, and he teaches us all he knows on snares.

One night, as I'm walking Gale back into town, he admits, "It'd be better if he were easier to hate.”

"Tell me about it," I say. "If I could've just hated him in the arena, we all wouldn't be in this mess now. He'd be dead, and I'd be happy little victor all by myself."

"And where would we be, Katniss?" asks Gale.

I pause, not knowing what to say.

Where _would_ I be with my pretend cousin who wouldn't be my cousin if it weren't for Peeta? Would he have still kissed me, and would I have kissed him back had I been free to do so? Would I have let myself open up to him, lulled by the security of money and food and the illusion of safety being a victor could bring under different circumstances?

Except, there would still always be the reaping looming over us, over our children. No matter what I wanted.

"Hunting. Like every Sunday," I say.

I know he hates my answer, but this is as much as I can give. Even the thought that I _had_ killed Peeta or let him die makes my heart pound.

On the third week of our training, I wake to find Prim loitering by my bedroom door.

I sit up. She looks timid and I invite her in. "Is something wrong?" I ask.

Prim twists the end of one of her pigtail braids nervously. "You'd tell me if something was the matter, wouldn't you?"

"Of course," I say. There is something off in her tone, like she's hurt. "Why? Have you heard something?"

"No. You just never _tell_ me things anymore. You know you can trust me, right? I would never tell anyone. You've looked so upset lately. Haymitch said you were being mean to Peeta, too. I'm not so little, you know. I'm almost fourteen, now. I can handle it. You don't have to worry about frightening me or anything..."

"Prim," I start, but then I stop, not knowing what I want to say. The look of hurt in her face increases until I can do nothing else but lean forward and clutch her head to my shoulder. Her arms slip effortlessly around my waist.

"You don't have to tell me," Prim whispers. "But you know you can, don't you?"

"Yes." I nod and screw my eyes shut, burying my face in her hair. "I know." _There are just so many things I don't want you to hear._ "I can handle them. You don't need to worry about me."

"But I do," Prim says. "I worry all the time. I'm scared sometimes that when you leave the house that you won't come back. And now..."

"Shh." I rock her. "It'll be okay. Somehow. I'll figure something out. I always do."

"Yes, but let me help you," Prim begs. Her arms around me tighten. "I can help."

We pull away and I stare down at her. "What do I say?"

"Anything. Tell me… about what scares you."

Everything. You, me, Mother, Gale, President Snow, going back. "Something else."

Prim pulls out the tie holding my braid together and flattens the crimped plait across my shoulder. Intently, as she runs her fingers through it and re-braids, she say, "Tell me about Peeta."

A long breath escapes me. This one is hard, but not as bad as her last request. If it were anyone else, then I would have left already and gone out to clear my head. Instead I look somewhere over Prim's head, trying to gather what I can share.

It suddenly occurs to me that I have no idea where Prim stands on the concept of Peeta and I. How much does she know? How much has she guessed or has been told? Does she know that it really was all a sham? Did she really think I wanted to marry him?

"Peeta... is complicated."

"He loves you," Prim prompts. "I can see that. Everyone can." Her eyes find mine, inquiring, a million questions hidden there that she's been holding back. "I didn't know you knew him, before. But during... when you were with him, it seemed like you've known each other for years."

"I knew him, but not really," I say. "He helped me once when you were too young to remember. It meant a lot, but I never thanked him for it. There was never a time. Then, the reaping... and it just didn't seem..."

"I can understand that," says Prim. The braid is finished, but she doesn't seem to like it, so she unties it and begins all over again. "Peeta said that I should ask you, when I came to him, about why you two weren't talking after the Games..."

_Haymitch, Peeta… who else has she been talking to? Trying to get close to me, forced to talk to strangers just in the attempt?_

"There was a misunderstanding."

"And there's another one, now? Because of the Quell?"

"Yes... no. It's complicated."

Prim curls her knees up under her and sits a little straighter. "I can listen. I have time."

Girl talk – it's always something I struggle with. I take a breath, steeling myself. _What do I tell her? The truth? A few stalling jokes?_

“I care about him. He's my friend. You don't just go through something like we did and not care. Except I don't... I don't think I love him… not the way he loves me. I don't think I can. Then there's Gale and I love him… I have to. The things we've been through lasted so much longer and we were each other's best friend for so long. It wouldn't be fair that I disregard all of that. Except..."

"You care about Peeta?"

"Yes," I force myself to say. "I care."

"And the Quell, you've talked about it?"

I shrug. "A little."

"What does he want?"

"To go in with me to make sure I win this time. Only me..."

Prim examines my face. "And you don't want him to die."

"No." I can't lie to her. "No, I don't want him to die. I'd rather–"

"You'd rather die for him," Prim finishes with the words that I would never have expressly used, but it's the truth.

She finishes the braid and this time it is perfect, and she flicks it behind my shoulder.

"I won't be angry,” she says. “You can say it."

"No, you should be. I shouldn't think about dying and leaving you here alone. You need me."

"I have Mother and the Hawthornes," Prim says. "I don't _need_ you, Peeta does. He doesn't have anyone."

"He has a family and friends… and Haymitch," I correct, but it sounds stale even to me.

"Are you mad because he wants to die for you? Or something else?"

"I'm not mad," I lie. "Just worried. Like I am now." I get up from the bed and begin to dig around for something decent to wear. "Haymitch and Peeta are going to come hound me if I'm not out in time for our run." I pause on my way into the bathroom and look back at Prim. "Thank you… for doing my hair."

She smiles shyly. "It's nothing."

I close the bathroom door, brush my teeth, take off my pajamas and wiggle into the clean clothes. Even when I pause to splash some cold water into my face, I know she'll still be out there, waiting.

"Thank you, for sharing," I hear her call.

I nod, then realize Prim cannot see that.

"And you? There's nothing you want to share with me?"

I wait, pausing with the zipper of my jacket half-way up, before finally, Prim says, "Well, it's nothing big or worrisome. Not really. It's just..."

"Just?" I move to the door and pull it open. Prim is sitting in the middle of my bed, hugging her knees to her chest. "You can trust me."

"I know," says Prim. "You don't usually like talking about this, I know, but Mother gets so fidgety whenever I do. All my friends they're... well they're not you." She bites her lip. "Rory, he's been..."

I cannot say what I expected my sister to ask me about. I have always thought about how different we are, but by her telling blush I know that this has to do with all the complicated things in my life that I have never been able to sort out.

"What has Rory been?" I say, maybe a little sharper than it should be.

" _No-thing,_ " Prim exclaims, dragging out the word. "That's the problem, he won't even talk to me" – I sigh in huge relief at that – "I don't know what I did or said, but ever since a few months ago, during the Victory Tour, he's been avoiding me."

Slowly I make my way back to the bed, and say, "Maybe he's just having some issues at home. Gale and Rory have been clashing over letting him hunt in the woods. Especially since what happened with me. He's just..." 

_Hormonal? Going through a stage? Worried about the cousins thing?_

Prim rolls her eyes before I can find the right phrase. "Peeta says that he's probably scared I'll give him cooties still. But I know he just said that so Rory wouldn't hurt my feelings."

"You've told Peeta about this?"

"Yeah." Prim shrugs, looking at me with startled eyes. "Why not? He's always around and nice."

"Yes, but, he's... he's just..."

_I'm your sister, not him._

"He's just…? Your fiancé? I thought I could trust him." Then she adds, as if trying to defend him, "He really does give good advice. Sometimes he'll take me to the bakery, and he'll let me give cookies to some of my classmates. Do you not want me to?"

“No… no, it's fine," I say, running a hand along my scalp. "I just didn't realize you spent so much time with him."

"I try to spend time with everyone. Haymitch doesn't really like it when I try to talk to him, he says I'm just following him around, but he really likes the goat cheese I make." She smiles. "And Gale, I showed him the best way to wrap hands, since there’s so many miners who just don't have gloves anymore. There's Penny too, from town, she's..."

Prim continues to tell me a couple of things that I listen halfheartedly to.

All I can really think is: _Where was I?_

I know the answer. I was off trying to stop and start a rebellion in the same move, hoping for the downfall of the Capitol and tiptoeing right where President Snow has told me to.

Prim only stops when there's a soft knock on my bedroom door. We both look up and our mother calls through, "Haymitch is downstairs, Katniss. He's wondering if you mean to join them in training this morning."

"Yes," I say. "Tell him I'll be right down."

"Will you promise me something?" Prim rushes when I move to leave, and she crawls to sit on the edge of the bed. "Nothing big, nothing like last time."

I hesitate, my hand on the doorknob, then nod.

"Whatever you do in the Games, will you promise me you'll do it for yourself. Not because you think it's right or because it's the best option, or someone else told you to do it. Will you do it for you… for love. The same way you chose to volunteer for me."

"Of course," I say, wondering where this had come from.

Prim saw the question in my eyes.

"If you can't come home knowing Peeta's dead, then don't come home just because you think I need you.”

It is difficult, but I manage to make myself say: "I promise."

I am two steps out the doorway when Prim says, "And Katniss?"

"Yes?"

"Did you thank him?"

I turn back. "Thank who?"

"Peeta. For what he did for you when I was too young to remember. Did you ever get to thank him?"

"No... not yet."

Haymitch is furious when I finally arrive. "If you think you can get away with skipping out on this Career nonsense, then I'm smuggling the liquor from your mother's cabinet."

I laugh. "I hear the stocks are quite warm, actually."

"Yeah and going into the Hunger Games is about the most comfortable life choice one can make."

The day before the reaping a hundred Peacekeepers arrive in District 12. The town in a flurry to prepare for the event and we are all too anxious to continue training.

That night, I stand on the front porch. This is the last time I will see District 12 in the night. My home. The place I grew up.

If anything, the talk with Prim has only increased my guilt. While she has given me permission to die, I am not sure how I feel. There’s a difference between dying in the arena despite my best efforts to survive and choosing to die in order to allow Peeta to live. The first is most likely, since I have doubts President Snow wants to see me as Victor, but on the off chance I am given the choice… even if I know I will choose to save Peeta… there is the guilt.

The sooner Prim and Mom, and Gale lets me go, the better.

As I am rehearsing my speeches for them, I see a figure exiting Haymitch's house across the way. I spot Peeta’s stocky frame. I call him over before I remember that we're still not talking.

"Katniss?" Peeta says. "You should get some sleep. The reaping is tomorrow.”

"I couldn't." I sit down on the front steps.

He says nothing and stare down at his shoes. The silence drags on until I can no longer stand it.

“I miss you," I say.

I miss talking to him. I miss laughing with him, and I do not like this new Peeta who bosses Haymitch and I around. I know he means well, but I miss the real Peeta.

"We've been together for the past three weeks. I see you every morning." He lifts his face and the porch light accentuates the confusion in his eyes. "I'm not avoiding you."

"But it's... you’re... acting different."

Last night, I dreamed of him. The dream had started out as a nightmare, but when I thought I woke, he was there holding me. That fire, that hunger, rose inside of me with him so close. I had taken advantage of that closeness, of this new desire that he caused. Until, I realized I was still dreaming, and I woke alone, sweaty and panting.

"I don't mean to be," Peeta replies.

I realize I have been staring at his lips and look down.

I wonder if this is what he feels when he’s looking at me, dreaming of me… kissing me. I wonder if he still wants those things.

"Katniss," Peeta says. He sits next to me and takes one of my hands into his.

The feel of his thumb running along the back of my knuckles makes my heartbeat pick up. That’s never happened before.

I look up at his face to find him flushed and staring at our hands. The night looms over us, pulling vacuum tight around us. It is only us. No Panem, not yet. I can feel his knee and calf leaning heavily against mine, burning through my skin.

"Katniss," he repeats, stronger this time. "I wish... I wish that you knew. That you could understand. I wish I could help you see the world as I do. You are just... stubborn." He smiles at that. "I like that about you. You are – _were_ – always the girl I would never know. And now… now, I know everything I could have wanted to.”

At first, I struggle to understand what he’s doing, and then it hits me. We are still fighting… we are still arguing over who lives and who dies. And this is his speech for me, his goodbye.

I know what he means, that he knows more than just the complicated stuff about me. Yes, I took him to my woods, and he knows about my father's bow and arrow, but he knows my favorite color, too, and my love for cheese buns, everything.

"You're right. I don't understand," I tell him.

"I won’t have a future once you're gone, and you know it." Peeta runs a hand through his hair in frustration. "Tell me, honestly, who do you think out of the two of us, cares about the other more?"

I wince and refuse to answer. It is obvious and painful to say.

"How can you argue about which of us should move on?" Peeta continues softly. "I love you, Katniss.”

"Do I need to love someone not to want them to die?” I say back. "You are my friend Peeta. You matter –”

"Yeah, how much?"

I bite my cheek.

Peeta sighs and makes as if to leave, but instead of letting him go, I pull him closer. Our lips are locked before I can remember why or how. 

_Yeah, how much?_ and I don't know how much, only this much.

Any reluctance or uncertainty, all of it, all the complicated back and forth that has piled up for weeks inside of me, falls away, into the flames.

It is as if I have never walked in my skin before, as if I have never known what it was really for. I could just float here, lose myself to him, in these kisses. Forget that torment waiting for us out in the cruel world.

But then, the fire spreads, turning from something harmless and breathtaking, into a warm ache, igniting somewhere deep inside of me.

I break away, getting to my feet.

Peeta sits on the stairs, chest rising and falling, staring at me with wide eyes.

"It's late," he says, abruptly.

"Yes," I agree hastily. 

I hurry inside, and crawl into bed. All night, all I can think of is the taste of him, the way his hand gripped my hip… the burn of his breath against my cheek…

By the time Mother comes to wake me for the reaping, I have not slept a wink.


	3. Chapter 3

The reaping goes just as I expect it to.

Effie, shining in a wig of metallic gold, lacks her usual verve. She has to claw around the girls' reaping ball for quite a while to snag the piece of paper with my name on it.

Next, she pull Haymitch’s name, and he barely has time to shoot me an unhappy look before Peeta has volunteered to take his place.

As we are motioned to shake hands, Peeta gives me a triumphant smile and I have to hide my scowl. The cameras are back. Even if I am angry, I have to smile. He knows this.

We are immediately marched into the Justice Building to find Head Peacekeeper Thread waiting for us.

"New procedure," he says.

We're ushered out the back door, into a car, and taken to the train station. There are no cameras on the platform and no crowd to send us on our way. Haymitch and Effie appear, escorted by guards. Peacekeepers hurry us all onto the train and slam the door. The wheels begin to turn.

I am dumbstruck, watching District 12 disappear, with all my good-byes still hanging on my lips.

I stand there until the trees have swallowed up the last of my home. All that I have left to take to my dying breath is what I managed to memorize last night from the front porch. This morning I only got that one last glimpse of Mother and Prim, and that one strained smile Gale and I shared on my walk to the reaping.

At my last Hunger Games, I told Prim I would do everything to return. Now I have sworn to myself to do all I can to keep Peeta alive.

Peeta clears his throat from behind me.

"We'll write letters, Katniss," Peeta assures me. "It will be better, anyway. It’ll give them a piece of us to hold on to. Haymitch will deliver them for us if... they need to be delivered."

I say nothing and go straight to my compartment.

As I sit on my bed, I sit knowing that I will not write those letters. They will be like the speech I tried to write to honor Rue and Thresh in District 11. Things seem clear in my head, but the words will never come out. Besides, they were meant to go with loving embraces; a stoke of Prim's hair, a caress of Gale's face, a squeeze of Madge's hand. They cannot be delivered with a wooden box containing my cold, stiff body.

Heartsick, I just want to lay in bed and sleep until we reach the Capitol tomorrow morning, but I have a mission. A suicide mission… a dying wish: _keep Peeta alive._ As unlikely as it seems that I can achieve it in the face of the Capitol's anger, it's important that I be at the top of my game. This won't happen if I'm mourning for everything I love back home.

I do my best, thinking of them one by one, releasing them like birds from the protective cage inside of me, locking the doors against their return.

By the time Effie knocks on my door to call me to dinner, I am empty.

The lightness is not entirely unwelcome.

Our meal is subdued. So subdued, in fact, that there are long periods of silence relived only by the removal of old dishes and presentation of new ones. A cold soup of purred vegetables. Fish cakes with creamy lime paste. Those little birds filled with orange sauce, with wild rice and watercress. Chocolate custard dotted with cherries.

Peeta and Effie make occasional attempts at conversation that quickly die out.

"I love your new hair, Effie," Peeta says.

"Thank you, I had it especially done to match Katniss' pin. I was thinking we might get you a golden ankle band and maybe find Haymitch a gold bracelet or something so we could all look like a team," says Effie.

Evidently, Effie does not know that my mockingjay pin is now a symbol used by the rebels. At least I know they do in District 8. In the Capitol, the mockingjay is still a fun reminder of an especially exciting Hunger Games. What else could it be? Real rebels do not put a secret symbol on something as durable as jewelry. They put it on a wafer of bread that can be eaten in a second if necessary.

"I think that's a great idea," says Peeta. "How about it, Haymitch?"

"Yeah, whatever," Haymitch replies flatly.

He's not drinking, but I can tell he'd like to be. Effie had them take her own wine away when she saw the effort he was making, but he's in a miserable state.

If he were the tribute, he would have owed us nothing and could be as drunk as he liked. Now it's going to take all he's got to keep Peeta alive in an arena full of his old friends, and he'll probably fail.

"Maybe we could get you a wig, too," I say in an attempt at lightness.

He just shoots me a look that says to leave him alone, and we all eat our custard in silence.

"Shall we watch the recaps of the reapings?" says Effie, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a white linen napkin.

Peeta retrieves his notebook of the remaining living victors and we gather in the compartment with the television to see who our competition will be in the arena.

In the history of the Games, there have been seventy-five victors. Fifty-nine are still alive. I recognize many of their faces as the annual recap plays, either from seeing them as a tribute or mentor at previous Games or from our recent viewing of the victors' tapes. Some are so old or rotted by illness, drugs, or drink that I can't place them.

As one would expect, the pools of Career tributes from District 1, 2, and 4 are the largest. Yet, every district has managed to scrape up at least one female and one male victor. The reapings go by quickly.

I peer over Peeta's shoulder as he studiously puts stars by the names of the chosen tributes in his notebook.

Haymitch watches, his face devoid of emotion, as friends of his step up to take the stage.

Effie makes hushed, distressed comments like, "Oh, not Cecelia," or "Well, Chaff never could stay out of a fight," and sighs frequently.

For my part, I try to make some mental record of the other tributes, but like last year, only a few really stick.

There's the classically beautiful brother and sister from District 1 who were victors in consecutive years when I was little.

Brutus, a volunteer from District 2, who must be at least forty and apparently can't wait to get back in the arena.

Finnick, the handsome bronze-haired guy from District 4 who was crowned ten years ago at the age of fourteen.

A hysterical young woman with flowing brown hair is also called from 4, but she's quickly replaced by a volunteer, an eighty-year-old woman who needs a cane to walk to the stage.

Then there is Johanna Mason, the only living female victor from 7, who won a few years back by pretending she was a weakling.

The woman from 8 who Effie calls Cecelia. She looks about thirty and has to detach herself from the three kids who run up to cling to her.

Chaff, a man from 11 who I know to be one of Haymitch's particular friends, is also in.

I'm called, then Haymitch, and Peeta volunteers.

One of the announcers actually gets teary because it seems the odds will never be in our favor, we star-crossed lovers of District 12. Then she pulls herself together to say she bets that "these will be the best Games ever!"

I feel sour.

Haymitch leaves the compartment without a word, and Effie, after making a few unconnected comments about this tribute or that, bids us good night.

I just sit there watching Peeta rip out the pages of the victors who were not picked.

"Why don't you get some sleep? You look tired," he says, without even glancing up at me.

 _I cannot handle the nightmares,_ I think. _Not without you._

I cannot say the words aloud, even though I know the nightmares are bound to be worse tonight.

"What are you going to do?" I ask.

"Just review my notes awhile. Get a clear picture of what we're up against. But I'll go over it with you in the morning. Go to bed, Katniss," Peeta says.

I feel dismissed, like he is pushing me away. Maybe he is upset about the kissing from last night and my abrupt departure. Perhaps he is getting tired of the spontaneous kissing and my erratic flights without explanation. I feel as if I owe him an explanation, because it is unfair of me to test out my desire on him, knowing how deep his feelings for me run. Except, there is no way for me to explain it. 

The pull I feel towards him is new to me and does not easily leap forth into words.

I slump to my feet and depart.

I go to bed, and sure enough, within a few hours I have a nightmare. The old woman from District 4 transforms into a large rodent and gnaws on my face. I am screaming, but when I wake, I feel arms tight around me.

I feel lips pressing against my temple. His hands run along the arc of my back, and then his mouth drops to my neck… and he bites me… and I am ripped from the dream.

I sit, alone, sweating, in my dark compartment.

I pull on a robe to calm the goosebumps crawling along my flesh. I decide to wander the compartments, hoping to find someone to make me tea or hot chocolate or anything to clear my head. Maybe Haymitch is still up. Surely, he is not asleep.

I order warm milk, the most calming thing I can think of, from an attendant. Hearing voices from the television room, I go in and find Peeta. Beside him on the couch is the box Effie sent of tapes of the old Hunger Games. I recognize the episode in which Brutus became victor.

Peeta rises and flips off the tape when he sees me.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asks.

"Not for long," I say.

"Want to talk about it?" he asks.

Sometimes that can help, but I just shake my head.

When Peeta holds out his arms, I walk straight into them… almost too eagerly.

I wrap my arms around his neck before he can change his mind. In turn he buries his face in my hair. Warmth radiates from the spot where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me.

Being held feels so good, so impossibly better than what the Peeta in my dreams offer, that I know, even as selfish as it is, I will not be the first to let go. And why should I? The moment I decided to die for Peeta, everything else ceased to matter. I'll never see Gale again. I can no longer hurt anyone. I am no longer lying to anyone, nor would I have to worry about marriages or children. If there is comfort to be had, in Peeta’s arms, then by the odds, I would take it while I still breathed.

The arrival of the Capitol attendant breaks us apart. Peeta has me sit at his side, squashed between him and the box of tapes. The attendant sets a tray with a steaming ceramic jug and two mugs on a table.

"I brought an extra cup," he says.

"Thanks."

"And I added a touch of honey to the milk. For sweetness. And just a pinch of spice," he adds. He looks at us like he wants to say more, then gives his head a slight shake and backs out of the room.

"What's with him?" I say.

"I think he feels bad for us," Peeta responds.

"Right," I say, pouring the milk.

"I mean it. I don't think the people in the Capitol are going to be all that happy about our going back in," says Peeta. "Or the other victors. They get attached to their champions."

"I'm guessing they'll get over it once the blood starts flowing," I say flatly. Really, if there's one thing I don't have time for, it's worrying about how the Quarter Quell will affect the mood in the Capitol. "So, you're watching all the tapes again?"

"Not really. Just sort of skipping around to see people's different fighting techniques," says Peeta.

"Who's next?" I ask.

"You pick," says Peeta, holding out the box.

The tapes are marked with the year of the Games and the name of the victor. I dig around and suddenly find one in my hand that we have not watched. The year of the Games is fifty. That would make it the second Quarter Quell. The name of the victor is Haymitch Abernathy.

"We never watched this one," I say.

Peeta shakes his head. "No. I knew Haymitch didn't want to. The same way we didn't want to relive our own Games. And since we're all on the same team, I didn't think it mattered much."

"Is the person who won the twenty-fifth in here?" I ask.

"I don't think so. Whoever it was must be dead by now, and Effie only sent me victors we might have to face." Peeta weighs Haymitch's tape in his hands. "Why? You think we ought to watch it?"

"It's the only Quell we have. We might pick up something valuable about how they work," I say, but I feel weird. It feels like some major invasion of Haymitch's privacy. I don't know why it should since the whole thing is considered public knowledge. Except, I have to admit I'm also extremely curious. "We don't have to tell Haymitch we saw it."

I thought maybe Peeta would be that guy who protects Haymitch, who would object to anything that may have crossed any lines... but I think my influence may be swaying him, because there is no hesitation in his voice when he replies, "Okay”.

He puts in the tape and I curl up next to him on the couch with my milk, which is really delicious with honey and spice in it, and I lose myself in the Fiftieth Hunger Games. All suggestive thoughts of Peeta fleeing my mind, fortunately, with nothing there but the reminder of him leaning into my side.

The video is long, and the longer it plays, Peeta and I slowly careen toward the screen. We are absorbed in the action: the fourty-eight tributes, Maysilee and Haymitch’s alliance, Maysilee’s death, and eventually, Haymitch’s ironic win.

Peeta clicks off the tape after Haymitch stands victorious over the body of the last tribute.

We sit there in silence.

Finally, Peeta says, "That force field at the bottom of the cliff, it was like the one on the roof of the Training Center. The one that throws you back if you try to jump off and commit suicide. Haymitch found a way to turn it into a weapon."

"Not just against the other tributes, but the Capitol, too," I say. "You know they didn't expect that to happen. It wasn't meant to be a part of the arena. They never planned on anyone using it as a weapon. It made them look stupid that he figured it out. I bet they had a good time trying to spin that one. Bet that's why I don't remember seeing it on television. It's almost as bad as us and the berries!"

I cannot help my sudden rush of humor. I laugh, really laughing for the first time in months. Peeta just shakes his head like I have lost my mind – and maybe I have, a little.

"Almost, but not quite," says Haymitch from behind us.

I whip around, afraid he's going to be angry at us for watching his tape, but he just smirks and takes a swing from a bottle of wine. So much for sobriety. I guess I should be upset he's drinking again, but I'm preoccupied with another feeling. I've spent all these weeks getting to know my competition, without even thinking about who my teammates are. Now a new kind of confidence is lighting up inside of me because I think I finally know who Haymitch is, and I am beginning to know who I am.

Once, I think, Peeta compared me to Haymitch. I had denied it then, but now I see what he means. Surely two people who have caused the Capitol so much trouble can think of a way to get Peeta home alive.

I am still buzzing from the laughter when Haymitch takes him and his drink back out of the compartment. It made me wonder how long he had been standing there, but once he is gone, the confidence settles in my chest, replacing the emptiness I felt earlier.

I sink into the couch, pushing out a long breath, and it feels great. My eyes are closed, but a light touch on my arm makes me open them.

Peeta is looking down at me, and when I see him, I smile on instinct.

"I told you that you're tired," he mutters.

I roll my eyes and close them again. "Yeah, well _now_ I am."

He says nothing, but instead shifts so he is comfortably leaning against my shoulder and the back of the coach.

"You're not a very convincing liar," he breathes after a long time, and I can feel his breath against my cheek.

 _Yes, I know,_ I think. _That's why we are stuck here. That's why the rebels wouldn't believe I loved you._

I lean into him, resting my head on his chest and after a slight hesitation he gathers me up in his arms for the second embrace of the night.

This time there is no attendant coming to separate us. My eyelids are heavy.

It is enough to be in his arms and to know that somehow, someway I am going to save him.


	4. Chapter 4

I wake suddenly.

I am acutely aware that my thigh is thrown over Peeta’s hip.

We are tangled together, struggling to fit on the narrow couch.

His nose is resting against my forehead. His lips touch my cheekbone. My chest is fitted directly against his.

The only reason I convince myself that I am not moving away is because I do not want to wake him.

It is a stupid excuse.

Except I am afraid. I know whatever I say to him when he wakes up it will likely not be what he wants to hear. The odds are that I will wound him in one way or another by opening my mouth, so I decide to be content in not saying anything at all.

Why ruin it? Why start the inevitable fight over who lives and dies? Why resist what feels so good and warm and wonderful when there's no harm in doing so?

Peeta's chest rises softly in sleep. His eyelashes, laying against his cheeks, are just as hypnotizing as I remember them to be. They might be as soft as silk, as soft as his lips…

If I lean in just an inch, my lips can touch the underside of his jaw.

Would it wake him?

His hot breath on my skin is all I feel.

All of these feelings are new, but they are a _new,_ new. A not entirely unwelcome new.

"You make me feel weak," I whisper.

It takes a moment, but Peeta’s eyes open.

"How?" he asks.

It takes a minute, but eventually, I have a response: "You make me have another person to worry about. When I was young… it was only my mother and Prim. Now I have you and Haymitch… and Gale…"

"Loving people is not a weakness, Katniss."

"Yeah, well," I say stubbornly, "I don't love you."

"I know," Peeta says, but there is amusement in his voice.

_Is he mocking me?_

"Why are you… laughing?" I ask.

"I'm not," Peeta says.

I scowl. "You're definitely amused about something."

He seems to think about it for a minute. He grins. I am blinded by his dimples.

"I don't believe you," Peeta says.

"Believe what?"

"That you don't love me."

This takes me a minute to swallow, and once I process it all, in plenty of shock, I am still stunned by his blatant choice of words.

“You don't think I know how I feel?” I demand.

"No,” he says. "You just won't admit it, even to yourself.”

“What makes you think that?" I ask tensely.

“You just listed me with a whole bunch of people you have always admitted to loving. I was right in the middle. Doesn't that count for something?"

There is so much _hope_ in his voice that I am speechless.

Peeta is suggesting that I am in denial.

Why would I be? I have always been able to admit that I love Gale. There is no uncertainty on that fact. With Peeta, it is more confusing, and I get mixed up with how complicated our relationship gets, with the Capitol’s involvement. There is so much pressure and manipulation when it comes to us.

There are things that remain unresolved and troubling.

How can I love him?

If I did, it would only be a threat on my life, or on any future child's life... and if I could have loved him this whole time, why hadn’t I?

If I had just loved him when it mattered, when it meant something, when it could have saved our nation, why hadn’t I?

Yet at the same time, how can I _not_ love him?

All I want to do it kiss him. I dream of him, and of doing things that I used to think I would never want.

These emotions are supposed to be toward those you love, and those you would marry and have children with, because that's what comes as a result: children.

_Wait_ , I think.

These are fruitless thoughts. It does not matter if I love him or not.

I owe him.

I am saving him.

What I need to be thinking about is how I am going to claw my way to that dying wish.

I sit up abruptly and stand.

Peeta does not try to stop me. I imagine he just sits there staring after me as I flee.

Twenty minutes later Effie is escorting me from the train and into my prep teams arms.

I have been through prep with Flavius, Venia, and Octavia numerous times, and it should have been a comfort, but I did not anticipate the emotional ordeal that awaited me.

At some point during the prep, each of them bursts into tears, and Octavia keeps up a running whimper throughout the morning. It turns out they really have become attached to me, and the idea of my returning to the arena has undone them. Combine that with the fact that by losing me they'll be losing their ticket to all kinds of big social events, particularly my wedding, and the whole thing becomes unbearable.

The idea of being strong for someone else has never entered their heads.

I find myself in the position of having to console them.

I am the person going in to be slaughtered, and yet, this is how it is.

It is interesting when I think of what Peeta said about the attendant on the train being unhappy about the victors having to fight again, and about people in the Capitol not liking it. I still think all of that will be forgotten once the gong sounds, but with my prep teams tears this is a revelation that those in the Capitol feel anything at all about us. They certainly don't have a problem watching children murdered every year. But maybe they know too much about the victors, especially the ones who've been celebrities for ages, to forget we're human beings. It's more like watching your own friends die. More like the Games are for those of us in the districts.

By the time Cinna shows up, I am irritable and exhausted from comforting the prep team, especially because their constant tears are reminding me of the ones undoubtedly being shed at home.

The moment Cinna walks in the door I snap, "I swear if you cry, I'll kill you here and now."

Cinna just smiles. "Had a damp morning?"

"You could wring me out," I reply.

Cinna puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me into lunch. "Don't worry. I always channel my emotions into my work. That way I don't hurt anyone but myself."

"I can't go through that again," I warn him.

"I know. I'll talk to them," says Cinna.

Lunch makes me feel a bit better. It is pheasant with a selection of jewel-colored jellies, and tiny versions of real vegetables swimming in butter, beside a dish of potatoes mashed with parsley. For dessert we dip chunks of fruit in a pot of melted chocolate, and Cinna has to order a second pot because I start eating the stuff with a spoon.

"So, what are we wearing for the opening ceremonies?" I finally ask as I scrape the second pot clean. "Headlamps or fire?"

"Something along that line," he says.

When it's time to get in costume for the opening ceremonies, my prep team shows up, but Cinna sends them away, saying they've done such a spectacular job in the morning that there's nothing left to do. They go off to recover, thankfully leaving me in Cinna's hands.

He puts up my hair first, in the braided style my mother introduced him to, then proceeds with my makeup. Last year he used little so that the audience would recognize me when I landed in the arena, but now my face is almost obscured by the dramatic highlights and dark shadows: high arching eyebrows, sharp cheekbones, smoldering eyes, and deep purple lips.

The costume looks deceptively simple at first, just a fitted black jumpsuit that covers me from the neck down. He places a half crown like the one I received as victor on my head, but it's made of a heavy black metal, not gold. Then he adjusts the light in the room to mimic twilight and presses a button just inside the fabric on my wrist.

I look down, fascinated, as my ensemble slowly comes to life, first with a soft golden light but gradually transforming to the orange-red of burning coal. I look as if I have been coated in glowing embers—no, that I am a glowing ember straight from our fireplace. The colors rise and fall, shift and blend, in exactly the way the coals do.

"How did you do this?" I say in wonder.

"Portia and I spent a lot of hours watching fires," says Cinna. "Now look at yourself."

He turns me toward a mirror so that I can take in the entire effect.

I do not see a girl, or even a woman, but some unearthly being who looks like she might make her home in the volcano that destroyed so many in Haymitch's Quell. The black crown, which now appears red-hot, casts strange shadows on my dramatically made-up face.

Katniss, the girl on fire, has left behind her flickering flames and bejeweled gowns and soft candlelight frocks. She is as deadly as fire itself.

"I think… this is just what I needed to face the others," I say.

"Yes, I think your days of pink lipstick and ribbons are behind you," says Cinna. He touches the button on my wrist again, extinguishing my light. "Let's not run down your power pack. When you're on the chariot this time, no waving, no smiling. I just want you to look straight ahead, as if the entire audience is beneath your notice."

"Finally something I'll be good at," I say.

Cinna has a few more things to attend to, so I decide to head down to the ground floor of the Remake Center, which houses the huge gathering place for the tributes and their chariots before the opening ceremonies.

I am hoping to find Peeta and Haymitch, but they haven't arrived yet.

Unlike last year, when all the tributes were practically glued to their chariots, the scene is very social. The victors, both this year's tributes and their mentors, are standing around in small groups, talking. Of course, they all know one another, and I don't know anyone, and I'm not really the sort of person to go around introducing myself. So, I just stroke the neck of one of my horses and try not to be noticed.

It does not work.

The crunching hits my ear before I even know he's beside me, and when I turn my head, Finnick Odair's famous sea green eyes are only inches from mine. He pops a sugar cube in his mouth, with more crunching and sucking, then leans against my horse.

"Hello, Katniss," he says, as if we've known each other for years, when in fact we've never met.

I try to keep my scowl on the horse and not him.

"Hello, Finnick," I say, just as casually, although I'm feeling uncomfortable at his closeness, especially since he's got so much bare skin exposed.

"Want a sugar cube?" he says, offering his hand, which is piled high. "They're supposed to be for the horses, but who cares? They've got years to eat sugar, whereas you and I... well, if we see something sweet, we better grab it quick."

Finnick Odair is something of a living legend in Panem. Since he won the Sixty-fifth Hunger Games when he was only fourteen, he's still one of the youngest victors. Being from District 4, he was a Career, so the odds were already in his favor, but what no trainer could claim to have given him was his extraordinary beauty. He is tall, athletic, with golden skin and bronze-colored hair paired with those incredible eyes. While other tributes that year were hard-pressed to get a handful of grain or some matches for a gift, Finnick never wanted for anything.

It took about a week for his competitors to realize that he was the one to kill, but it was too late. He was already a good fighter with the spears and knifes he had found at the Cornucopia, so when he received the silver parachute with a trident it was all over.

District 4's industry is fishing. He'd been on boats his whole life, and the trident came naturally. He wove nets to entangle his opponents and spear them. Within the matter of days he had the crown.

Now there are rumors about him being given to the biggest bidder of drooling Capitol citizens. I cannot argue that Finnick is not one of the most stunning, sensuous people on the planet. But I can honestly say he's never been attractive to me. Maybe he's too pretty, or maybe he's too easy to get, or maybe it's he's too easy to lose. Either way, the thought of sharing him with paying Capitol snobs was revolting.

"No, thanks," I say to the sugar. "I'd love to borrow your outfit sometime, though."

He is draped in a golden net that's strategically knotted at his groin so that he can't technically be called naked, but he's about as close as you can get. I'm sure his stylist thinks the more of Finnick the audience sees, the better.

"You're absolutely terrifying me in that get-up. What happened to the pretty little girl dresses?" he asks. He wets his lips just ever so slightly with his tongue. Probably this drives most people crazy, but for some reason all I can think about is old Cray, salivating over some poor, starving young woman.

"I outgrew them," I say simply.

Finnick takes the collar of my outfit and runs it between his fingers. "It's too bad about this Quell thing. You could have made out like a bandit in the Capitol. Jewels, money, anything you wanted."

"I don't like jewels, and I have more money than I need. What do you spend all yours on anyway, Finnick?"

"Oh, I haven't dealt in anything as common as money for years," says Finnick.

"Then how do they pay you for the pleasures of your company?" I ask.

"With secrets," he says softly. He tips his head, so his lips are almost in contact with mine. "What about you, girl on fire? Do you have secrets worth my time?"

_Do I?_

My mouth immediately says, "No, I'm an open book. Everybody seems to know my secrets before I know them myself."

But I blush and the heat spreads through me, remembering my dreams of Peeta and the ever-growing hunger inside of me for more.

"Unfortunately, I think that's true,” Finnick says, his eyes flickering off to the side. "Peeta is coming. Sorry you have to cancel your wedding. I know how devastating that must be for you." He tosses another sugar cube in his mouth and saunters off.

Peeta's beside me, dressed in an outfit identical to mine.

"What did Finnick Odair want?" he asks.

I turn and put my lips close to Peeta's. My eyelids are hooded, in a poor imitation of Finnick. "He offered me sugar and wanted to know all my secrets," I say in my best seductive voice.

Peeta laughs. Good to see he is not mad at me for running away this morning. "Ugh. Not really." 

"Really," I say. "I'll tell you more when my skin stops crawling."

"Do you think we'd have ended up like that if only one of us had won?" he asks, glancing around at the other victors. "Just another part of the freak show?"

I snort. I know he does not mean it literally, and he understands they are all at the disposal of their stylists, and the aftereffects of their first Hunger Games, but I love that he has the right words to keep the atmosphere light.

"Sure," I reply. "Especially you."

"Oh, and why especially me?" he says.

"Because you have a weakness for beautiful things, and I don't. They would lure you into their Capitol ways and you'd be lost for an eternity."

His face softens. "Having an eye for beauty isn't the same thing as a weakness," Peeta say, and I feel like we're back to this morning, but now it's weakness and beauty that we are talking about, instead of love.

Then he goes ahead and adds, "Except possibly when it comes to you."

The blush sears across my face. Before I can move, his lips brush mine.

I jolt, but I guess it is kind of my fault for never pulling back after imitating Finnick. Plus, I have been snatching kisses from him since the Quarter Quell announcement, and it is not fair to admonish him for it. Especially since I know all of the others and the cameras are peering in.

A woman's laughter breaks us apart.

Cecelia has a kind face and a tone of skin that runs deeper in her bare forearms and along her freckled shoulders, than in her face. Her outfit is some sort of brightly colored textile workings revealing a bit more skin than most woman around thirty would choose to expose. For a mother of three, she is surprisingly fit, though, and her strong, sweet voice is tinged in a constant good nature.

I cannot remember a thing about her Hunger Games, but I do wonder how someone who seems so maternal has won.

"No need to look so abash," Cecelia says to Peeta, who is flushing bright red. "She is your fiancé. Kiss her all you like. Never know how many chances you'll get after tonight." Her smile is cloy, laughing, then she turns to me. "I am sorry about your wedding. Those dresses were all very beautiful on you."

"I like this outfit much better," I say.

"Yes," Cecelia agrees, looking it over. "It suits you better. And you," she turns back to Peeta and straightens his collar where I had ruffled it. "You remind me of my oldest son. So handsome. That bright, charming smile."

Peeta laughs, completely at ease.

I shift uncertainly, watching her touch him. I wonder if I am prepared to shoot her with an arrow, when in a week’s time she touches him and we are not wearing silly outfits, but we are attempting to fight to the death.

I do not get far in that thought before the music begins to play and Cecelia bids us both a goodbye.

"She's nice," Peeta says when she's out of earshot.

I shrug.

Along with the start of the music, I see the doors at the front of the train opening for the first chariot and hear the roar of the crowd beyond. We both feel the weight of the Opening Ceremony occurring to us again, instead of kisses and competitors, and Peeta holds out a hand to help me into the chariot.

"Shall we?" he asks.

I climb up.

"Hold still," I say, and I straighten his crown. Cecelia missed this. "Have you seen your suit turned on? We're going to be fabulous again."

"Absolutely. But Portia says we're to be very above it all. No waving or anything," he says.

"Where are they, anyway?"

"I don't know."

I eye the procession of chariots. "Maybe we better go ahead and switch ourselves on."

We do and as we begin to glow, I can see people pointing at us and chattering, and I know, once again, that I owe a big thank you to our stylists.

We're almost at the door. I crane my head around, but neither Portia nor Cinna, who were with us right up to the final second last year, are anywhere in sight.

"Are we supposed to hold hands this year?" I ask.

"I guess they've left it up to us," Peeta replies.

I look up into those blue eyes that no amount of dramatic makeup can make truly deadly and remember how, just a year ago, I was prepared to kill him. I was convinced he was trying to kill me.

Now everything is reversed. I am determined to keep him alive, knowing the cost will be my own life. But a part of me, the selfish me, is glad that it's Peeta, not Haymitch, standing beside me.

Our hands find each other without further discussion.

Of course we will go into this as one.


	5. Chapter 5

Peeta and I wait until the doors of the Training Center have closed behind us to finally relax.

Cinna and Portia are there, pleased with our performance. Even Haymitch has made an appearance this year. Except he's not at our chariot. He's over with the tributes of District 11. I see him nod over in our direction and then they follow him over to greet us.

I know Chaff by sight because I've spent years watching him pass a bottle back and forth with Haymitch on television. He's dark skinned, about six feet tall, and one of his arms ends in a stump because he lost his hand in the Games he won thirty years ago. I'm sure they offered him a replacement, but he didn't take it.

The woman, Seeder, looks almost like she could be from the Seam, with her olive-toned skin and straight black hair streaked with silver. Only her golden-brown eyes mark her as from another district. She must be around sixty, but she still looks strong, and there's no sign she's turned to liquor or morphine or any other chemical form of escape over the years.

Before either of us says a word, she embraces me. I know somehow it must be because of Rue and Thresh, and unable to stop myself, I whisper, "The families?"

"They're alive," she says back faintly, letting go.

Chaff throws his good arm around me and gives me a kiss right on the mouth. I jerk back, startled, while he and Haymitch guffaw. I could taste the alcohol on his lips. Haymitch must have brought down shots to share before we arrived.

That's about all the time we get before the Capitol attendants are firmly directing us toward the elevators. I get the distinct feeling they're not comfortable with the camaraderie among the victors, who couldn't seem to care less.

As I walk toward the elevator, wiping the back of my hand repeatedly on my mouth, and my other hand still linked with Peeta's, someone else is rushing up to our side. The girl pulls off a headdress of leafy branches and tosses it behind her without bothering to look where it falls. One glance and I know that face: Johanna Mason.

She ruffles up her spiky hair and rolls her wide-set brown eyes as I look at her. "Isn't my costume awful? My stylist is the biggest idiot in the Capitol. Our tributes have been trees for forty years under her. Wish I'd gotten Cinna. You look fantastic."

"Yeah, he's been helping me design my own clothing line. You should see what he can do with velvet." Velvet is the only fabric I can think of off the top of my head.

"I have. On your tour. That strapless number you wore in District 2? The deep blue one with diamonds? So gorgeous I wanted to reach through the screen and tear it right off your back," says Johanna.

 _I bet you did,_ I think. _With a few layers of my flesh_.

While we wait for the elevators, Johanna unzips the rest of her tree, letting it drop to the floor, and then kicks it away in disgust. Except for her forest green slippers she doesn't have on a stitch of clothing. "That's better."

We end up on the same elevator with her, and she spends the whole ride to the seventh floor chatting to Peeta about his paintings while the light of his still-glowing costume reflects off her bare breasts.

I toss his hand away as the doors close behind her and he begins to laugh.

"What?" I say, crossing my arms over my chest.

"It's you, Katniss. Can't you see?" Peeta says.

"What's me?" I say.

"Why they're all acting like this. Finnick with his sugar cubes and Chaff kissing you. The whole thing with Johanna stripping down." He tries to suppress his huge grin but does not succeed. "They're playing with you because you're so... you know."

"No, I don't know," I say.

"It's just like when you wouldn't look at me naked in the arena even though I was half dead. You're so... pure," he finally concludes.

"I am not!" I say. "They've seen me practically ripping off your clothes every time there's been a camera around for the past year!"

"Yeah, but I mean, for the Capitol, you're pure. Imagine how many times they undressed Finnick within the ceremonies and over the years? Besides, the victors aren't stupid they know you're just doing it for the shot."

I open my mouth to retort, then close it when I realize, for the Capitol, the sex-crazed, sensual-loving people of this materialistic world, I really am as pure as it gets.

Then I remember recent cravings that have been added to my menu.

"I'm not that pure," I finally say.

Peeta rolls his eyes. "Katniss, you're pure, trust me."

"How do you know? You don't know everything about me."

"I know enough. You're still pure, to them. For me, you're perfect. They're just teasing you."

"No they're laughing at me and so are you!" I say.

Peeta shakes his head.

I grab Peeta's face in my hands and press my mouth to his in a wet, open, jarring kiss that only lasts as long as it takes for one of my hands to slide down his chest and rest against the rigid muscles of his stomach. My fingers are icy against his hot skin, and he jerks away almost immediately.

I stare defiantly up at him. His eyes are on fire. I can see the desire there, and I wonder if beyond my angry, he can see mine, too.

The sound of the elevator door opening distracts me.

We step out and join Effie and Haymitch on the landing. They are looking pleased about something, then Haymitch's face grows hard. 

_What did I do now?_ I almost say, but I see he is looking behind me at the entrance to the dining room.

Effie blinks in the same direction, then says brightly, "Looks like they've got you a matched set this year."

I turn around and see the redheaded Avox girl who tended to me last year until the Games began. I notice that the young man beside her, another Avox, also has red hair.

Then a chill runs through me because I know him, too. I don't know him from the Capitol but from years of having easy conversations in the Hob, joking over Greasy Sae's soup, and that last day, watching him lie unconscious in the square while the life bled out of Gale.

Our new Avox is Darius.

Haymitch grips my wrist as if anticipating my next move, but I am as speechless as the Capitol has rendered Darius.

There are things I want to say, to explain to him, but I know that any recognition on my part will only result in further punishment for him.

I twist my wrist from Haymitch's grasp and head down to my old bedroom, locking the door behind me. I sit on the side of my bed, elbows on my knees, forehead on my fists, and watch my glowing suit in the darkness, imagining I am in my old home in District 12.

I imagine what it would be like to have had a simple life.

Eventually Effie knocks on the door to summon me to dinner. I get up and take off my suit, fold it neatly, and set it on the table with my crown. I wash the dark streaks of makeup from my face. I dress in a simple shirt and pants and go down the hall to the dining room.

I am not aware of much at dinner except that Darius and the redheaded Avox girl are our severs.

I push the food around my plate with disgust. My stomach churns at the thought of eating anything.

Effie, Haymitch, Cinna, Portia, and Peeta are all there, talking about the opening ceremonies, I suppose.

The only time I really feel present is when I purposely knock a dish of peas to the floor and, before anyone can stop me, crouch down to clean them up. Darius is right by me when I send the dish over, and we two are briefly side by side, obscured from view, as we scoop up the peas. For just one moment our hands meet. I can feel his skin, rough under the buttery sauce from the dish.

In the tight, desperate clench of our fingers are all the words we will never be able to say.

Then Effie's clucking at me from behind about how "That isn't you job, Katniss!" and he lets go.

We watch the recap of the opening ceremonies.

As soon as the recapping is over, I stand up and thank Cinna and Portia for their amazing work and head off to bed. Effie calls a reminder to meet early for breakfast to work out our training strategy, but even her chirping voice sounds hollow.

Soon after I go to bed, there's a quiet knock on my door.

When I open it Peeta looks relieved to see my face. His hands are clammy and cold sweat clings to his forehead. He told me once most of his nightmares are about losing me.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I say. I move back and let him in, then close and lock the door.

Peeta joins me on the edge of the bed.

I pull him close, marveling how easy it has become to touch him even when there are no cameras to impress.

"What happened?" I say.

Peeta does not say anything for a long while, then he says, "It’s stupid."

"Tell me."

"It was a good dream to start…"

"Good how?"

"I was dreaming about what if the Quarter Quell did not happen… if life was back to before.” Peeta shifts, like he is embarrassed to admit it. "It takes a while, but we are happy and married, and, there is a little girl..."

I flinch at the suggestion, and Peeta withdraws a little, but I say, "Go on."

"It’s stupid," Peeta repeats. "There was a reaping, and she was only a little girl, only five. We thought she would be safe, but... they changed the rules, like for a Quell. She is reaped, put into the Games... and we couldn't do anything except watch..."

He does not finish describing the nightmare. He does not have to. It is a fear I have had since I was a little girl myself. Losing a child to the Hunger Games, knowing the pain that Rue's parents have endured. What my Mother might have felt if I had lost.

I know that he does not expect me to say anything. He knows this fear of mine, and regardless, this Quell has at the very least absolved us from ever having to worry about that exact scenario. Sometimes, just speaking the nightmare out loud releases its power over you.

Before long, we are holding each other to sleep.

Children dominate my nightmares.

First, I watch, frozen and helpless, as Rue get stabbed through the abdomen repeatedly. I re-watch her death in my dreams as if in slow motion. Then I see my sister, my little duckling, being dragged away kicking and screaming by Capitol attendants while my mother kneels in front of our old Seam house.

But, finally, shaking, terrified, I am standing in front of a mirror, staring into my own reflection, my hand resting against my bulging abdomen. Blood stains run along the sides of the mirror, by tiny fingerprints in incomprehensible shapes. There is a shadow in the mirror behind me. I think it is Peeta, but when I turn my head it's President Snow, and his puffy lips are dripping with bloody saliva, hungrily staring at the child inside of me.

When I wake, heart pounding, Peeta is rolled half the bed away. I don't want to disturb his sleep or fill his head with what I have just seen, so I stumble into the bathroom and vomit violently in the sink.

I strip off my sweaty clothes and fall back into bed, partially naked, and somehow find sleep again.


	6. Chapter 6

I wake up with my body morphed up against Peeta’s back.

I know I should roll away, but the feel of his skin against mine is warm and comforting.

I feign sleep when he wakes up. I have never gone to sleep in just my underclothes with him, and as he stirs from sleep and notices that I am partially undressed, he withdraws.

At the sound of him reattaching his artificial leg, I say, "Peeta.”

He does not turn back to me. “Katniss...”

"Come back."

After a few minutes, Peeta stiffly lays back against the pillows, but his eyes are cast to the ceiling. It is hard to read his expression.

"I should go," Peeta says.

"Stay."

He struggles to word what seems different between us, just as I had, and his face turns ten different shades of red. "What are you doing?" he asks, earnestly, as if hoping this is not some mistake or trick or attempt to change his mind about who will get out of this Quell.

All I can think is: _I am not doing anything that will hurt anyone_.

"Close your eyes," I say aloud.

At first, my hand is hesitant, but then I grow surer, and I take his hand into mine. I roll closer, one leg pressed against his, and he lets out a nervous series of exhales.

"Trust me," I tell him.

"I do," he says.

I pull his arm around me, his hand flat against my middle back.

Peeta begins to shake his head, eyes still closed, but I grab his face and force him to meet my stare.

I can see the fear in him, but also the love, and the desire, and the kindness…

He kisses me.

My hands grip at his hair and his tighten around my waist. I feel a pliable as dough in his arms, as he traces and maps out the shape of me.

As my mouth moves to his neck, my thighs are suddenly thrown apart by his knee.

I gasp, jarred by the action. I can feel my desire like lightning inside of me, splintering itself all the way through my shoulders and back.

Peeta draws back, worried.

“We shouldn't be doing this," he says, as if embarrassed.

"Why not? Because we're not married?" I'm breathless, and the joke comes out harsher than I meant it to. "Because we're going to be dead in a few days?"

"Is this really what you want?" he asks me, as if needing me to voice my consent aloud.

“I want you,” I tell him, and it is true. While I had no idea how far I planned on going with this, I know at the very least that I want him, and to experience and explore this desire while I still can.

“I want you, too,” he says, his eyes full of love.

We kiss. He rolls onto me. The weight of him is consuming, like we are one. His hands travel along the sides of my torso. I arch into him. He smiles against my mouth.

He draws back suddenly. He holds my face in between his wide hands. He looks at me as if I am a thing to be devoured, a thing to be savored, and I wonder if my eyes reflect the same desire.

Peeta traces the line of my collarbone. “You are so beautiful,” he says.

I reach up with a finger and trace the bow of his swollen lips. I marvel at how soft and red they are.

Then there is a knock on the door.

Peeta throws himself away from me, and I sit up, clutching my knees to my chest.

Effie’s chirping calls through my bedroom door, "Time to get up! It's another big, big, big day! Don't be late for breakfast!”

We hear her heels clicking away and manage to catch our breath enough to laugh.

“I should go get ready,” Peeta says, smiling and straightening his clothes.

I nod and watch him leave. At the door he peers outside of it, as if it is some great stealthy mission and winks at me before it closes behind him.

I sit there smiling like an idiot.

Eventually I drag myself to breakfast.

I am not sure what there is to discuss. Every victor already knows what everybody else can do. Or used to be able to do, anyway. It is of course expected that Peeta and I will continue to act in love and that's that.

My mind wanders briefly to the nightmares of last night. A violent chill runs through my body. What bothers me the most was not the blood, or even Prim being violently ripped away from Mother, but it is the look on Snow's face as he leered ravenously at my pregnant belly. It is of course exactly how he would feel if I had a child: fodder for entertainment, control over me, and a message to every victor and every future victor. Except, thank the odds, perhaps most fortunately, he has made this reality impossible. I did not plan on making it out of this arena, and so I am not doomed to this future.

When I finally arrive to breakfast, Haymitch’s face is flushed with drink and anger. On his wrist he wears a solid-gold bangle with a pattern of flames–this must be his concession to Effie's matching-token plan–that he twists unhappily. It's a very handsome bangle, really, but the movement makes it seem like something confining, a shackle, rather than a piece of jewelry.

"You're late," he snarls at me.

"Sorry. I slept in after the nightmares of– " my voice caught there. I did not want to say anything about children, not when I know Peeta's nightmares are so similar.

"Alright, never mind,” Haymitch says. “Today in-training you've got two jobs. One, stay in love."

"Obviously," I say.

"And two, make some friends," Haymitch continues over me.

"No," I say. "I don't trust any of them, I can't stand most of them, and I'd rather operate with just the two of us."

"That's what I said at first, but—" Peeta begins.

"But it won't be enough," Haymitch insists. "You're going to need more allies this time around."

"Why?" I ask.

"Because you're at a distinct disadvantage. Your competitors have known each other for years. So who do you think they're going to target first?" he says.

"Us. Nothing we're going to do is going to override any old friendship," I say. "So why bother?"

"Because you can fight. You're popular with the crowd. That could still make you desirable allies. But only if you let the others know you're willing to team up with them," says Haymitch.

"You mean you want us in the Career pack this year?" I ask, unable to hide my distaste.

"That's been our strategy, hasn't it? To train like Careers?"

"And who makes up the Career pack is generally agreed upon before the Games begin. Peeta barely got in with them last year."

I think of the loathing I felt when I discovered Peeta was with the Careers during the last Games. "So we're to try to get in with Finnick and Brutus. Is that what you're saying?"

"Not necessarily. Everyone's a victor. Make your own pack if you'd rather. Choose who you like. I'd suggest Chaff and Seeder. Although Finnick's not to be ignored," Haymitch says. "Find someone to team up with who might be of some use to you. Remember, you're not in the ring full of trembling children anymore. These people are all experienced killers, no matter what shape they appear to be in."

There's a slim chance he's right. Only who could I trust? Seeder maybe. But do I really want to make a pact with her, only to possibly have to kill her later? No. Still, I made a pact with Rue under the same circumstances.

I tell Haymitch I'll try, even though I think I'll be pretty bad at the whole thing.

Part of me just wants to cut ties, pull Peeta behind me and push through this. I think I could do it, even though logically it seems idiotic. It's just what I want to do, rather than dealing with the other loose ends.

Effie shows up a bit early to take us down because last year, even though we were on time, we were the last two tributes to show up.

Haymitch tells her he doesn't want her taking us down to the gym. None of the other victors will be showing up with a babysitter and being the youngest it's even more essential that we come off as self-reliant. So she had to satisfy herself with taking us to the elevator, fussing over our hair, and pushing the button for us.

As soon as the doors are shut Peeta turns to me.

"If you're expecting a kiss, I think now's not really the place."

He rolls his eyes. "Sometimes I think you consider me a complete idiot."

"Well, what else am I supposed to think?" I retort.

Peeta smiles it off. "I thought we should talk about this morning," he says, but his statement is cut short by the doors dinging open.

I hurriedly take him by the hand.

In a low voice, I tell him, "We can talk about it later."

He nods and the topic is mercifully put off for another time.

Effie needn't have fret over us being the last to arrive. Only Brutus and the woman from District 2, Enorbaria, are present.

Enorbaria looks to be about thirty and all I can remember about her is that, in hand-to-hand combat, she killed one tribute by ripping open his throat with her teeth. She became so famous for this act that, after she was a victor, she had her teeth cosmetically altered so each one ends in a sharp point like a fang and is inlaid with gold. She has no shortage of admirers in the Capitol.

By ten o'clock, only about half of the tributes have shown up. Atala, the woman who runs training, begins her spiel right on time, unfazed by the poor attendances. Maybe she expected it. I'm sort of relieved, because that means there are a dozen people that I do not have to pretend to make friends with. Atala runs through the list of stations, which include both combat and survival skills, and release us to train.

I tell Peeta that I think we'd do best to split up, thus covering more territory. He agrees readily enough, snagging a kiss before he goes off to chuck spears with Brutus and Chaff, and I head over to the knot-tying station. Hardly anyone ever bothers to visit it, even though I told him we were splitting to cover more people, I just don't know how well I could do that.

I like the trainer and he remembers me fondly, maybe because I spent time with him last year. He's pleased when I show him that I can still set the trap that leaves an enemy dangling by a leg from a tree. He took note of my snares in the arena last year and now sees me as an advanced pupil, so I ask him to review every kind of knot that might come in handy and a few that I'll probably never use.

I'd be content to spend the morning alone with him, but after about an hour and a half, someone puts his arms around me from behind, his fingers easily finishing off the complicated knot I've been sweating over. Of course it's Finnick, who seems to have spent his childhood doing nothing but wielding tridents and manipulating ropes into fancy knots for nets.

I watch for a minute while he picks up a length of rope, makes a noose, and then pretends to hang himself for amusement.

I narrow my eyes, then roll them at his ridiculous expression, heading over to another vacant station where tributes can learn to build fires. I already make excellent fires, but I'm still pretty dependent on matches for starting them. So the trainer has me work with flint, steel, and some charred cloth. This is much harder than it looks, and even working intently as I can, it takes me about an hour to get a fire going. I look up with a triumphant smile only to find I have company.

The two tributes from District 3 are beside me, struggling to start a decent fire with matches.

I think about leaving, but I really want to try using the flint again. Plus, I might as well try to make Haymitch happy. They're a bearable choice. Both are small in stature with ashen skin and black hair. The woman, Wiress, is probably around my mother's age and speaks in a quiet, intelligent voice. But right away I notice she has a habit of dropping off her words in mid-sentence, as if she's forgotten you're there. Beetee, the man, is older and somewhat fidgety. He wears glasses but spends a lot of time looking under them.

They're a little strange, but I'm pretty sure neither of them is going to try to make me uncomfortable by doing something to tease my 'pureness'. Plus, they're from District 3. Maybe they can even confirm my suspicions of an uprising there.

I glance around the Training Center. Peeta is at the center of the ribald circle of knife throwers. The morphlings from District 6 are in the camouflage station, painting each other's faces with bright pink swirls. The male tribute from District 5 is vomiting wine at the sword-fighting station. Finnick and the old woman from his district are using the archery set up. Johanna Mason is naked again and oiling her skin down for wrestling lessons. I decide to stay put.

Wiress and Beetee make decent company.

They seem friendly enough but don't pry. We talk about our talents. They tell me they both invent things, which makes my supposed interest in fashion seem pretty weak. Wiress brings up some sort of stitching device she's working on.

"It sense the density of the fabric and selects the strength," she says, and then becomes absorbed in a bit of dry straw before she can even continue what she was saying.

"The strength of the thread," Beetee finishes explaining. "Automatically on its own. It rules out human error." Then he talks about his recent success of creating a musical chip that was small enough that it could be concealed in a flake of glitter but could hold hours of songs. I remember Octavia talking about this during the wedding shoot, and I see a possible chance to allude to the uprising.

"Oh, yeah. My prep team was all upset a few months ago, I think, because they couldn't get a hold of that," I say casually. "I guess a lot of orders from District Three were getting backed up."

Beetee examines me under his glasses. "Yes. Did you have any similar backups in coal production this year?" he asks.

"No. Well, we lost a couple of weeks when they brought in a new Head Peacekeeper and his crew, but nothing major," I say. "To production. I mean, two weeks sitting around your house doing nothing just means two weeks of being hungry for most people."

"Oh, that's a shame," says Wiress in a slightly disappointed voice. "I found your district very..." she trails off, distracted by something in her head.

"Interesting," Beetee fills in. "We both did."

I feel bad knowing their district must have suffered much more than mine has. I feel I have to defend my people. "Well, there aren't many of us in Twelve," I say. " Not that you'd know nowadays by the size of the Peacekeeper force. But were interesting enough, I guess."

As we move over to the shelter station, Wiress stops and gazes up at the stands where the Gamemakers are roaming around, eating and drinking, sometimes taking notice to us.

"Look," she says giving her head a slight nod in their direction.

I look up and see Plutarch Heavensbee in the magnificent purple robe with the fur-trimmed collar that designated him Head Gamemaker.

I don't see why this merits comment, but I say, "Yes, he's been promoted to Head Gamemaker this year."

"No, no. There by the corner of the table. You can just..." says Wiress.

Beetee squints under his glasses. "Just make out."

I stare in that direction, perplexed. But then I see it. A patch of space about six inches of it, in the shape of a square at the corner of the table that seems almost to be vibrating. It's as if the air is rippling in tiny visible waves, distorting the sharp edges of the wood and a goblet of wine someone has set there.

"A force field. They've set one up between the Gamemakers and us. I wonder what brought that on," Beetee says.

"Me, probably," I confess. "Last year I shot an arrow at them during my private training session." Beetee and Wiress look at me curiously. "I was provoked. So, do all force fields have a spot like that?"

"Chink," says Wiress vaguely.

"In the armor, as it were," finishes Beetee. "Ideally, it'd be invisible, wouldn't it?"

I want to ask them more, but lunch is announced. I look for Peeta, but he's hanging out with a group of about ten other victors, so I decide to eat with District 3. Maybe I can get Seeder to join us.

Except when we make our way into the dining area, I see some of Peeta's gang have other ideas. They're dragging all the smaller tables to form one large table so that we all have to eat together. Now I don't know what to do. Even at school I used to avoid eating at a crowded table. Frankly, I'd probably have sat alone if Madge hadn't made a habit of joining me.

I think about sitting next to Peeta, but the thought that he might distract me seems certain. Still undecided, I take a tray anyway and start making my way around the food-laden carts that ring the room. Peeta catches up with me at the stew.

"How's it going?" he asks.

"Good. Fine. I like the District Three victors," I say. "Wiress and Beetee."

"Really?" he asks. "They're something of a joke to the others."

"Why does that not surprise me?" I say. I think of how Peeta was always surrounded at school by a crowd of friends. It's amazing, really, that he ever took any notice of me except to think I was odd.

"Johanna's nicknamed them Nuts and Volts," he says. "I think she's Nuts and he's Volts."

"And so I'm stupid for thinking they might be useful. Because of something Johanna Mason said while she was oiling her breasts for wrestling." I bit my cheek the second the words were out.

"Actually I think the nicknames have been around for years. And I didn't mean that as an insult. I'm just sharing information," he says. His tone is cautious, but he is not going to say anything that could lead to something else.

To the outsiders it just looks like we are whispering together, like perfect little love birds.

"Well, Wiress and Beetee are smart. They invent things. They could tell by sight that a force field had been put up between us and the Gamemakers. And if we have to have allies, I want them." I toss the ladle back in a pot of stew, splattering us both with gravy.

"What are you so angry about?" Peeta demands, wiping the gravy from his shirtfront. "Because Johanna? Because I teased you?" Then he pauses, pursing his lips before scanning the area and whispering, "It's not about this morning, is it?" He looks pained. "What were you saying earlier, in the elevator?"

"Forget it," I say tersely with the shake of my head. "It doesn't matter, what I said. This is not about this morning. That was just... not bad." Peeta shifts his weight onto his opposite foot and I bite my cheek now, to hide a smile. "It's just a lot of things."

"Darius," he guesses.

"Darius. The Games. Haymitch making us team up with the others," I say.

"It can be just you and me, you know," says Peeta, placing a gentle hand on my lower back.

I like the idea, especially coming from him. He must have seen the light in my face because he's suddenly smiling. "Is that what you want?" he asks.

"I... don't know." I don't want to let on how much I like it. Plus, "Maybe Haymitch is right about the ally thing. Don't tell him I said so, but he usually is, where the Games are concerned."

"Well, then, you can have the final say about our allies. But right now I'm leaning towards Chaff and Seeder," Peeta compromises.

"I'm okay with Seeder, not Chaff."

"Come on and eat with him. I promise, I won't let him kiss you again," he assures me.

I agree to it, and Chaff doesn't seem as bad at lunch.

After lunch I do the edible-insect station with the District 8 tributes; Cecelia, who's got three kids at home, and Woof, a really old guy who's hard of hearing and doesn't seem to know what's going on since he keeps trying to stuff poisonous bugs in his mouth.

I wish I could mention meeting Twill and Bonnie in the woods, but I can't quite figure out how.

I start to like Cecelia. She talks calmly and sweetly to the bewildered, dazed Woof, where I would have lost my patience. She tells me about her kids, all boys, and she confesses that if she ever had a daughter, she would have wished her to be like Prim. Cecelia recalls almost every word that Prim has said in the family interviews and the ones they took during the Victory Tour.

Cashmere and Gloss, the sister and brother from District 1, invite me over and we make hammocks for a while. They're polite but cool, and I spend the whole time thinking about how I killed both tributes from their district, Glimmer and Marvel, last year, and that they probably knew them and might even have been their mentors. Both my hammock and my attempt to connect with them are mediocre at best.

I join Enorbaria at sword training and exchange a few comments, but it's clear neither of us wants to team up.

Finnick appears again when I'm picking up fishing tips, but mostly just to introduce me to Mags, the elderly woman who's also from District 4.

Between her district accent and her garbled speech–possibly she's had a stroke–I can't make out more than one in four words. She can make a decent fish hook out of anything though: a thorn, a wishbone, an earring.

After a while I tune out the trainer and simply try to copy whatever Mags does. When I make a pretty good hook out of a bent nail and fasten it to some strands of my hair, she gives me a toothless smile and an unintelligible comment I think might be a praise.

Suddenly I remember how she volunteered to replace the young, hysterical woman in her district. This cannot be because she thought she had a chance of winning. She did it to save the girl, just like I volunteered last year to save Prim. I decide I want her on my team.

Now I have to go back and tell Haymitch I want an eighty-year-old and Nuts and Volts and the most maternal victor in all of existence for my allies. He'll love that.

So I give up trying to make friends and go over to the archery range for some sanity. Maybe I could work off some of my frustration. It's wonderful there, getting to try out all the different bows and arrows. The trainer, Tax, seeing that the standing targets offer no challenge for me, begins to launch silly fake birds high into the air for me to hit.

At first, it seems stupid, but it turns out to be kind of fun. Much more like hunting a moving creature.

Since I'm hitting everyone he throws, he starts increasing the number of birds he sends airborne. I forget the rest of the gym and the victors and how miserable I am and lose myself in the shooting.

When I manage to take down five birds in one round, I realize it's so quiet I can hear each one hit the floor. I turn and see the majority of the victors have stopped to watch me. Their faces show everything from envy to hatred to admiration.

After training, Peeta and I hang out, waiting for Haymitch and Effie to show up for dinner. It is mostly spent loitering in the television room, in sight of the Capitol attendants, so we cannot get around to talking or doing anything of importance.

When we're called to eat, Haymitch pounces on me immediately. "So at least half the victors have instructed their mentors to request you as an ally. I know it can't be you sunny personality."

"They saw her shoot," says Peeta with a smile. "Actually, I saw her shoot, for real, for the first time. I'm about to put in a formal request myself."

"You're that good?" Haymitch asks me. "So good that Brutus wants you?"

I shrug. "But I don't want Brutus. I want Mags, and Cecelia, and District Three."

"Of course you do." Haymitch sighs and orders a bottle of wine. "I'll tell everybody you're still making up your mind."

After my shooting exhibition, I still get teased some, but I no longer feel like I'm being mocked. In fact, I feel as if I've somehow been initiated into the victors' circle. During the next two days, I spend time with almost everybody headed for the arena. Even the morphlings, who, with Peeta's help, paint me into a field of yellow flowers. Even Finnick, who gives me an hour of trident lessons in exchange for an hour of archery instruction.

The more I come to know these people, the worse it is. Because, on the whole, I don't hate them. And some I like. And a lot of them are so damaged that my natural instinct would be to protect them. But all of them must die if I am to save Peeta.

With Haymitch constantly hounding us from dawn to dusk about strategy plans, and Darius that haunts the hallways by night, Peeta and I have found very little time to talk and even less time alone, to continue or not to continue whatever it is that I started. When dinner ended the night before the final training day, and Haymitch is so drunk and exhausted that he merely wanders off with his bottle of alcohol, Peeta catches my eyes and we both excuse ourselves from Effie's presence.

I am just opening my bedroom door, when Peeta rests a hand on my elbow.

I turn to look up at him.

"Maybe... we should talk out here?" Peeta asks.

"What if Effie or Haymitch come along?" I say, shaking my head. "If you really need to talk about what happened, then come on. I don't have all my life."

Inside, I sit on the bed and Peeta stands nearer the door, clearly on edge.

There's no beginning explanation, no indication at all to what he's talking about, and Peeta says, "Aren't you worried? At all?"

"Worried about what?"

Peeta makes a frustrated, hand motion. "All of this. You are acting so different…"

He looks away from me. He chews on his lip. I think about chewing on his lip for him.

“I know I asked you on the train if you love me. Well, I guess I told you that I believe you do… and you denied it, but do you?” Peeta says, turning back to look at me. “Do you love me?”

I shift uncomfortably under his intense gaze. He looks at me as if me admitting it might change his whole world, as if it might change the fact that we are both trying to die for the other.

I search my mind for a way to answer him.

“I want you,” I say, hoping it is enough.

“You want me, but do you love me?”

I look down at my feet. I could not deny that him and I have been closer than ever before. I cannot deny the feelings his eyes, his mouth, his hands draw from deep within me. Is this love?

Did it matter?

“I need you.”

I wait for him to say something more. An objection? A confession? Outrage? Anything.

My fingernails dig into my forearm, waiting.

“I need you, too,” he whispers.

I look up. His eyes are burning into mine.

“Then what's there to worry about?" I ask.

"Effie," Peeta says, smiling. "She might catch us."

He moves across the room to kiss me.


	7. Chapter 7

Our private sessions are today.

We each get fifteen minutes with the Gamemakers to amaze them with our skills, but I do not know what any of us might have to show them. There's a lot of kidding about it at lunch. What we might do. Sing, dance, strip, tell jokes. Mags, who I can understand a little better now, decides she's just going to take a nap. I do not know what I'm going to do. Shoot some arrows, I guess. Haymitch said to surprise them if we could, but I'm fresh out of ideas.

As the girl from 12, I'm scheduled to go last. The dining room gets quieter and quieter as the tributes file out to go perform. It's easier to keep up the irreverent, invincible manner we've all adopted when there are more of us. As people disappear through the door, all I can think is that they have a matter of days to live.

Peeta and I are finally left alone.

He reaches across the table to take my hands. "Decided what to do for the Gamemakers yet?"

I shake my head. "I can't really use them for target practice this year, with the force field up and all. Maybe make some fishhooks. What about you?"

"Not a clue. I keep wishing I could bake a cake or something," he says.

"Do some more camouflage," I suggest.

"If the morphlings have left me anything to work with," he says wryly. "They've been glued to that station since training started."

We sit in silence awhile and then I blurt out the thing that's on both our minds. "How are we going to kill these people, Peeta?"

"I don't know." He leans his forehead down to rest against our intertwined hands.

"I don't want them as allies. Why did Haymitch want us to get to know them?" I say. "It'll make it so much harder than last time. Except for Rue maybe. But I guess I never really could've killed her, anyway. She was just too much like Prim."

Peeta looks up at me, his brow creased in thought. "Her death was the most despicable, wasn't it?"

"None of them were very pretty," I say, thinking of Glimmer's and Cato's ends.

They call Peeta, so I wait by myself. Fifteen minutes pass. Then half an hour. The delay gives me time to think about not only just how we really are going to kill these people, but also about last night. Nothing much did happen, aside kissing, but for me it felt like a milestone. Peeta might not blink twice about it, even though I am sure he enjoys the make-out sessions almost as much as me, but it is that pull for more that troubles me.

He never pressures me for more, of course, but I can read it in his face, and I can feel the pull for more inside of myself. I just have not been able to actually do it. What if I embarrass myself? What if it only furthers his pain once I am gone? What if it makes it harder to keep him alive?

These are the questions that plague me once I am called in.

I smell the sharp odor of cleaner and notice that one of the mats has been dragged to the center of the room. The mood is very different from last year's. They whisper among themselves, looking somewhat annoyed.

What did Peeta do? Something to upset them?

I feel a pang of worry. That isn't good. I don't want Peeta singling himself out as a target. That's part of my job. But how did he upset them? Because I'd love to do just that and more. To break through the smug veneer of those who use their brains to find amusing ways to kill us. To make them realize that while we're vulnerable to the Capitol's cruelties, they are as well.

I try to catch Plutarch Heavensbee's eye, but he seems to be intentionally ignoring me, as he has the entire training period. I remember how he sought me out for a dance and eagerly showed me the mockingjay secreted on his watch. His friendly manner has no place here. How could it when I am a mere tribute and he is the Head Gamemaker? So powerful, so removed, so safe…

Suddenly I know just what I'm going to do. I find a dummy and tie a noose. I carefully finger paint the words on its body, concealing them from view.

Then I step away to watch the reaction on the Gamemakers' faces as they read the name on the dummy's chest: Seneca Crane.

The effect on the Gamemakers is immediate and satisfying. Several let out small shrieks. Others lose their grips on their wineglasses, which shatter musically against the ground. Two seem to be considering fainting. The look of shock is unanimous.

Now I have Plutarch Heavensbee's attention.

He stares steadily at me as the juice from the peach he crushed in his hand runs through his fingers. Eventually, he clears his throat and says, "You may go now, Miss Everdeen."

I surprised them, I think. It was rash and dangerous and no doubt I will pay for it ten times over. But for the moment, I feel something close to elation and I let myself savor it.

I want to find Haymitch immediately and tell him about my session, but no one's around.

I guess they're getting ready for dinner and I decide to go take a shower myself, since my hands are stained from the juice.

As I stand in the water, I begin to wonder about the wisdom of my latest trick.

The question that should now always be my guide is "Will this help Peeta stay alive?"

Indirectly, this might not. What happens in training is highly secretive, so there's no point in taking action against me when no one will know what my transgression was.

In fact, last year I was rewarded for my brashness.

This is a different sort of crime, though. If the Gamemakers are angry with me and decide to punish me in the arena, Peeta could get caught up in the attack as well. Maybe it was too impulsive.

As we all gather for dinner, I notice Peeta's hands are faintly stained with a variety of colors, even though his hair is still damp from bathing. That means he must have done some form of camouflage after all. He catches my stare though, and he grins wickedly over his peas, so much so that I have to turn away, and that only leads to my eyes landing on the suspicious looking Cinna.

Once the soup is served, Haymitch gets right to the issue on everyone's mind. "All right, so how did your private sessions go?"

I exchange a look with Peeta. I am not that eager to put what I did into words. In the calm of the dining room, it seems very extreme.

"You first," I say to him. "It must have been really special. I had to wait for forty minutes to go in."

Peeta seems to be struck with the same reluctance I'm experiencing.

"Well, I—I did the camouflage thing, like you suggested, Katniss." He hesitates. "Not exactly camouflage. I mean, I used the dyes."

"To do what?" asks Portia.

I think of how ruffled the Gamemakers were when I entered the gym for my session. The smell of cleaners. The mat pulled over that spot in the center of the gym. Was it to conceal something they were unable to wash away?

"You painted something, didn't you? A picture."

"Did you see it?" Peeta asks.

"No. But they'd made a real point of covering it up," I say.

"Well, that would be standard. They can't let one tribute know what another did," says Effie, unconcerned. "What did you paint, Peeta?" She looks a little misty. "Was it a picture of Katniss?"

"Why would he paint a picture of me, Effie?" I ask, somehow annoyed.

"To show he's going to do everything he can to defend you. That's what everyone in the Capitol's expecting, anyway. Didn't he volunteer to go in with you?" Effie says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Actually, I painted a picture of Rue," Peeta says. "How she looked after Katniss had covered her in flowers."

There's a long pause at the table while everyone absorbs this.

"And what exactly were you trying to accomplish?" Haymitch asks in a very measured voice.

"I'm not sure. I just wanted to hold them accountable, if only for a moment," says Peeta. "For killing that little girl."

"This is dreadful." Effie sounds like she's about to cry. "That sort of thinking…it's forbidden, Peeta. Absolutely. You'll only bring down more trouble on yourself and Katniss."

"I have to agree with Effie on this one," says Haymitch.

Portia and Cinna remain silent, but their faces are very serious. Of course, they're right. But even though it worries me, I think what he did was amazing.

"I guess this is a bad time to mention I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane's name on it," I say. This has the desired effect. After a moment of disbelief, all the disapproval in the room hits me like a ton of bricks.

"You…hung…Seneca Crane?" says Cinna.

"Yes. I was showing off my new knot-tying skills, and he somehow ended up at the end of the noose," I say.

"Oh, Katniss," says Effie in a hushed voice. "How do you even know about that?"

"Is it a secret? President Snow didn't act like it was. In fact, he seemed eager for me to know," I say. Effie leaves the table with her napkin pressed to her face. "Now I've upset Effie. I should have lied and said I shot some arrows."

"You'd have thought we planned it," says Peeta, giving me just the hint of a smile.

"Didn't you?" asks Portia. Her fingers press her eyelids closed as if she's warding off a very bright light.

"No," I say, looking at Peeta with a new sense of appreciation. In my chest, I could feel the knot pulling ever tighter. "Neither of us even knew what we were going to do before we went in."

"And, Haymitch?" says Peeta. "We decided we don't want any other allies in the arena."

"Good. Then I won't be responsible for you killing off any of my friends with your stupidity," he says.

"That's just what we were thinking," I tell him.

We finish the meal in silence, but when we rise to go into the sitting room, Cinna puts his arm around me and gives me a squeeze.

"Come on and let's go get those training scores,” he says.

We gather around the television set and a red-eyed Effie rejoins us. The tributes' faces come up, district by district, and their scores flash under their pictures. One through twelve. Predictably high scores for Cashmere, Gloss, Brutus, Enorbaria, and Finnick. Low to medium for the rest.

"Have they ever given a zero?" I ask.

"No, but there's a first time for everything," Cinna answers.

It turns out he's right. Because when Peeta and I each pull a twelve, we make Hunger Games history. No one feels like celebrating, though.

"Why did they do that?" I ask.

"So that the others will have no choice but to target you," says Haymitch flatly. "Go to bed. I can't stand to look at either one of you."

Peeta walks me down to my room in silence, but before he can say goodnight, I wrap my arms around him and rest my head against his chest.

His hands slide up my back and his cheek leans against my hair.

"I'm sorry if I made things worse," I say.

"No worse than I did. Why did you do it, anyway?" he says.

"I don't know. To show them that I'm more than just a piece in their Games?" I say.

He laughs a little, no doubt remembering our night on the roof. Peeta had said something of the sort then, but I had not understood what he meant. Now I do.

"Me, too," he tells me. "And I'm not saying I'm not going to try. To get you home, I mean. But if I'm perfectly honest about it…"

"If you're perfectly honest about it, you think President Snow has probably given them direct orders to make sure we die in the arena anyway," I say.

"It's crossed my mind," says Peeta.

It has crossed my mind, too. Repeatedly.

I'll never leave that arena alive, but I am still holding on to the hope that Peeta will.

"But even if that happens, everyone will know we've gone out fighting, right?" Peeta asks.

"Everyone will," I say.

For the first time, I manage to distance myself from the personal tragedy that has consumed me since they announced the Quell. I remember the old man they shot in District 11, and Bonnie and Twill, and the rumored uprisings. Yes, everyone in the districts will be watching me to see how I handle this death sentence. They will be looking for some sign that their battles have not been in vain. If I can make it clear that I am still defying the Capitol right up to the end, then the Capitol may have killed me… but they will not kill my spirit.

What better way to give hope to the rebels?

The beauty of this idea is that my decision to keep Peeta alive at the expense of my own life is in of itself an act of defiance. A refusal to play the Hunger Games by the Capitol's rules. My private agenda dovetails completely with my public one. If I really could save Peeta… in terms of a revolution, this would be ideal, because I will be more valuable dead. They can turn me into some kind of martyr for the cause and paint my face on banners, and it will do more to rally people than anything I could do if I was living. Peeta would be more valuable alive, and tragic, because he will be able to turn his pain into words that will transform people.

Peeta would lose it if he knew I was thinking any of this, so I quickly smile and ask, "So what should we do with our last few days?"

"I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you," Peeta replies.

"Come on, then," I say, pulling him into my room.

We are both too exhausted to do much, but tonight both of us do manage to strip down to underclothes. I have seen him like this before, of course, in the Games, but when I sink down into sleep, enveloped in his warmth, I marvel at the feel of his skin against mine.

When I open my eyes again, daylight's streaming through the windows.

"No nightmares," he says.

"No nightmares," I confirm. "You?"

"None. I'd forgotten what a real night's sleep feels like," he says.

We lie there for a while, in no rush to begin the day. Tomorrow night will be the televised interview, so today Effie and Haymitch should be coaching us, but then the redheaded Avox girl comes in with a note from Effie saying that, given our recent tour, both she and Haymitch have agreed we can handle ourselves adequately in public. The coaching sessions have been canceled.

"Really?" says Peeta, taking the note from my hand and examining it. "Do you know what this means? We'll have the whole day to ourselves."

"It's too bad we can't go somewhere," I say wistfully.

"Who says we can't?" he asks.

The roof. We order a bunch of food, grab some blankets, and head up to the roof for a picnic. A daylong picnic in the flower garden that tinkles with wind chimes. We eat. We lie in the sun. I snap off hanging vines and use my newfound knowledge from training to practice knots and weave nets. Peeta sketches me. We make up a game with the force field that surrounds the roof—one of us throws an apple into it and the other person has to catch it.

No one bothers us. By late afternoon, I lie with my head on Peeta's lap, making a crown of flowers while he fiddles with my hair, claiming he's practicing his knots. After a while, his hands go still.

"What?" I ask.

"I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever," he says.

Usually this sort of comment, the kind that hints of his undying love for me, makes me feel guilty and awful. But I feel so warm and relaxed and beyond worrying about a future I'll never have, I just let the word slip out. "Okay."

I can hear the smile in his voice. "Then you'll allow it?"

"I'll allow it," I say.

His fingers go back to my hair and I doze off, but he rouses me to see the sunset. It's a spectacular yellow and orange blaze behind the skyline of the Capitol.

"I didn't think you'd want to miss it," he says.

"Thanks," I say. I can count on my fingers the number of sunsets I have left, and I don't want to miss any of them.

Just before the whole sun sinks below the tall buildings of the Capitol, I turn my head to look at Peeta. He has never looked so different to me than right then, bathed in the light of the twilight. My hand reaches his before he can even notice my intent, and when I move to him, there is no hesitation to return my kiss.

We do not join the others for dinner, and no one summons us.

"I'm glad. I'm tired of making everyone around me so miserable," says Peeta. "Everybody crying. Or Haymitch…" He doesn't need to go on.

We stay on the roof until bedtime and then quietly slip down to my room without encountering anyone.

Tonight neither of us are exhausted.

My face feels warm from a day outside. Inside of me, my reluctance at living life is forgotten. Death is certain. All I want to do is not care and to relish in the newfound bond between Peeta and I.

The problem is that Peeta seems content to just lay here with me in his arms, even when I use kissing him breathless as a hint.

A realization seems to strike him when my lips trail down his neck and one of my hands slides along the hem of his boxers.

He pulls my face to his to kiss me deeply. He shifts onto his elbow, pulling me into him. I am lost in the feel of his tongue.

Then I feel something hard against my thigh.

Peeta's hands are tangled in my hair. Each kiss he gives me is precise, lasting, deep. The few I get in are rasher, shorter, unpracticed. I trace the lines of the muscles in his biceps. I grip his shoulders. I do not know how to communicate my need for more, to somehow be closer and more intimate with him.

He rolls on top of me. The weight of him forces the air from my lungs as a bellow might, but still it comes out as the lightest of sighs.

Peeta fingers the strap of my bra. I want nothing more than for him to rip it off, all shyness forgotten, but he is tantalizingly slow in his motions.

He kisses down my throat. He litters my collarbone with them. He presses his lips into the hammering pulse point on my neck. Peeta pauses only once to admire the light dust of freckles on my shoulders.

His hands run along the curves of my hips. He lowers himself to place a kiss against my ribcage.

I shudder at the feel of his eyelashes.

His hands move to my back, and I am arching up into him, and into the kisses he leaves along my torso and my stomach.

My breath is ragged by the time Peeta reaches the waistband of my underwear.

The feel of his breath against my center almost drives me mad.

My hands travel down to grip him by his curls. I am already arched as far as I can go, so he is the one who lowers his face to nuzzle against me.

The ache in my lower abdomen pulses urgently. I am wet for him, and I never knew it would be – could be – like this.

Peeta tongues the junction of my thigh and groin. I wonder if he can smell me, if he likes it, if he wants to _taste_ me.

I pull on his curls. I feel his smile.

“So impatient,” he whispers.

I cannot say why, but I laugh.

"We may only have a few days left," Peeta says, kissing his way back up my abdomen, "but I want to take my time."

I cannot say I really understand what he means, but I have no time to argue before he is back to kissing my mouth.

I wrap my legs around his unsuspecting waist, flipping us over. I straddle him, Peeta's shocked face underneath me. My smile could probably cut glass.

"My turn," I say, and I cannot wait to taste new parts of him.

I plant a kiss to his shoulder and start downward. I mean to do it like he did, but I have trouble slowing down. My kisses are faster, but deeper. I leave plenty of hickies on his chest.

Our first true detour is when I reach his boxers. My hand rests against the metal of his artificial leg. I sit back on my knees.

"Katniss?”

I do not answer immediately, because I stare at his lost leg, wondering, marveling. I feel guilty, even if this is a guilt that is not meant for me to bear. I feel empathy, remembering my fear of lost hearing.

Finally, I say, "Thank you,” and I place a kiss to the cold unfeeling metal just where his thigh once was.

I move quickly back up to his face, smothering it with kisses, and still he gets a chance to speak.

"For what?"

"For everything," I say. "For never changing. For caring. For being a good person."

That is all I have the patience to talk about. No more of our breath is wasted on conversation.

Both of our hands travel over the other, learning things, finding scars, loving.

At some point, Peeta flips us again.

Soon after both of us are no longer wearing any clothes at all.

He traces the edge of breasts reverently. His tongue runs across my nipples.

I hold the heat of his erection in my hand. He shows me how to grip it and stroke it. I do the same when his fingers tentatively explore the wetness between my legs.

We hold each other’s hands, guiding each other’s fingers, whispering encouragements into each other’s ears.

Then Peeta, not me, is the impatient one, and I am the one who wants to dig my heels in.

I realize I am afraid to take it to full on sex.

Peeta fails to notice my reluctance. He moves back down my body to tentatively place a kiss against my center

I arch into him. My heart is pounding, and I am lightheaded.

He licks me. It is hesitant at first, and then it is eager, hungry and I cannot help the moans escaping me.

I grip his curls and am both lost in the pleasure, and also in my fear.

I realize now why I have always avoided romantic relations, because, I knew, eventually, inevitably, I would lose control. If I had gone into a relationship like this, eventually it would become sexual, and I would lose control. My desire would overcome my willpower.

All those people I have judged in the past, for having kids when they knew the Hunger Games existed, I understand now, and I feel panic.

So when Peeta draws away from my center, a whispered question inside his eyes, I shake my head.

I cannot go on. I am not ready. This cannot happen.

I have lost that sense of freedom and the comfort my eventual death gave me.

I am scared.

I roll away. I curl up around myself on the edge of the bed and Peeta gives only one soft touch of my arm before retreating.

"I am sorry," he says.

"No," I say, "I'm sorry. I just can't. I didn't mean...”

_Tease you? Lead you on? Confuse you?_

"No, it's okay. Really, Katniss." He shifts, like he means to touch me again, only in a reassuring way, but he re-thinks it and says, "This is more than I could have ever wanted."

Peeta gets up, pulling on his pants.

I turn back around. "Don't go," I say. "You shouldn't have to leave... I... we can still be together. You said you wanted to spend the rest of your time with me."

_I still need you_ , I almost say, but stop myself.

He smiles.

“I just want to get in my nightly shower,” he tells me. “Do you mind if I use yours?”

“No, go ahead.”

As he showers, I take the time to cool off and put on not just my underclothes, but pajamas as well.

Once Peeta returns, in his own cozy outfit, we quickly fall asleep in each other’s arms.


	8. Chapter 8

The next morning we are roused by my prep team.

The sight of Peeta and I sleeping together is too much for Octavia because she bursts into tears right away.

"You remember what Cinna told us," Venia says fiercely.

Octavia nods and goes out sobbing.

Peeta has to return to his room for prep, and I'm left alone with Venia and Flavius. The usual chatter has been suspended. In fact, there's little talk at all, other than to have me raise my chin or comment on a makeup technique. It's nearly lunch when I feel something dripping on my shoulder and turn to find Flavius, who's snipping away at my hair with silent tears running down his face. Venia gives him a look, and he gently sets the scissors on the table and leaves.

Then it's just Venia, whose skin is so pale her tattoos appear to be leaping off of it.

It's only when Cinna shows up to approve me and dismiss her that she takes my hands, looks me straight in the eye, and says, "We would all like you to know what a… privilege it has been to make you look your best." Then she hastens from the room.

My prep team: my foolish, shallow, affectionate pets, with their obsessions with feathers and parties, nearly break my heart with their good-bye. It's certain from Venia's last words that we all know I will not be returning.

 _Does the whole world know it?_ I wonder.

I look at Cinna. He knows, certainly. But as he promised, there's no danger of tears from him.

"So, what am I wearing tonight?" I ask, eying the garment bag that holds my dress.

"President Snow put in the dress order himself," says Cinna. He unzips the bag, revealing one of the wedding dresses I wore for the photo shoot. "Even though they announced the Quarter Quell the night of the photo shoot, people still voted for their favorite dress, and this was the winner. The president says you're to wear it tonight. Our objections were ignored."

I rub a bit of the silk between my fingers, trying to figure out President Snow's reasoning. I suppose since I was the greatest offender, my pain and loss and humiliation should be in the brightest spotlight. This, he thinks, will make that clear. It's so barbaric, the president turning my bridal gown into my shroud, that the blow strikes home, leaving me with a dull ache inside.

"Well, it'd be a shame to waste such a pretty dress" is all I say.

Cinna helps me carefully into the gown. As it settles on my shoulders, they can't help giving a shrug of complaint.

"Was it always this heavy?" I ask. I remember several of the dresses being dense, but this one feels like it weighs a ton.

"I had to make some slight alterations because of the lighting," says Cinna.

I nod, but do not really understand.

He decks me out in the shoes and the pearl jewelry and the veil. He touches up my makeup and has me walk.

"You're ravishing," he says. "Now, Katniss, because this bodice is so fitted, I don't want you raising your arms above your head. Well, not until you twirl, anyway."

"Will I be twirling again?" I ask, thinking of my dress last year.

"I'm sure Caesar will ask you. And if he doesn't, you suggest it yourself. Only not right away. Save it for your big finale," Cinna instructs me.

"You can give me a signal, so I know when," I say.

"All right. Any plans for your interview? I know Haymitch left you two to your own devices," he says.

"No, this year I'm just winging it. The funny thing is, I'm not nervous at all."

We meet up with Effie, Haymitch, Portia, and Peeta at the elevator. Peeta's in an elegant tuxedo and white gloves. The sort of thing grooms wear to get married in, here in the Capitol. Back home everything is so much simpler. They have their own little ceremony, where they make their first fire, toast a bit of bread, and share it. Maybe it's old-fashioned, but no one really feels married in District 12 until after the toasting.

Peeta takes my hand before the elevator opens, and this time, I know it's not because the cameras are waiting out there.

For reasons beyond me, even with last night, it's not awkward. I find only comfort, not guilt, in his touch.

The other tributes have already gathered offstage and are talking softly, but when Peeta and I arrive, they fall silent.

I realize everyone's staring daggers at my wedding dress.

Are they jealous of its beauty? Or the power it might have to manipulate the crowd?

Finally Finnick says, "I can't believe Cinna put you in that thing."

"He didn't have any choice. President Snow made him," I say, defensively.

Cashmere tosses her flowing blond curls back and spits out, "Well, you look ridiculous!" She grabs her brother's hand and pulls him into place to lead our procession onto the stage.

The other tributes begin to line up as well.

I'm confused because, while they all are angry, some are giving us sympathetic pats on the shoulder, and Johanna Mason actually stops to straighten my pearl necklace.

"Make him pay for it, okay?" she says.

I nod, but I don't know what she means.

Not until we're all sitting out onstage. Caesar Flickerman, hair and face highlighted in lavender this year, gives his opening spiel and the tributes begin their interviews. This is the first time I realize the depth of betrayal felt among the victors and the rage that accompanies it.

They are smart, so wonderfully smart about how they play it, because it all comes back to reflect on the government and President Snow in particular. Not everyone. There are the old throwbacks, like Brutus and Enorbaria, who are just here for another Games. There are those who are too baffled or drugged to join in on the attack, but there are enough victors who still have the wits and the nerve to go out fighting.

Cashmere starts the ball rolling with a speech about how she just can't stop crying when she thinks of how much the people in the Capitol must be suffering because they will lose us.

Gloss recalls the kindness shown here to him and his sister.

Beetee questions the legality of the Quell in his nervous, twitchy way, wondering if it's been fully examined by experts of late.

Finnick recites a poem he wrote to his one true love in the Capitol, and about a hundred people faint because they're sure he means them.

By the time Johanna Mason gets up, she's asking if something can't be done about the situation. Surely the creators of the Quarter Quell never anticipated such love forming between the victors and the Capitol. No one could be so cruel as to sever such a deep bond.

Seeder quietly ruminates about how, back in District 11, everyone assumes President Snow is all-powerful. So if he's all-powerful, why doesn't he change the Quell?

Chaff, who comes right on her heels, insists the president could change the Quell if he wanted to, but he must not think it matters much to anyone.

By the time I'm introduced, the audience is an absolute wreck. People have been weeping and collapsing and even calling for change. The sight of me in my white silk bridal gown practically causes a riot. No more me, no more star-crossed lovers living happily ever after, no more wedding. I can see even Caesar's professionalism showing some cracks as he tries to quiet them so I can speak, but my three minutes are ticking quickly away.

Finally there's a lull and he gets out, "So, Katniss, obviously this is a very emotional night for everyone. Is there anything you'd like to say?"

My voice trembles as I speak. "Only that I'm so sorry you won't get to be at my wedding…but I'm glad you at least get to see me in my dress. Isn't it just…the most beautiful thing?"

I don't have to look at Cinna for a signal. I know this is the right time. I begin to twirl slowly, raising the sleeves of my heavy gown above my head.

When I hear the screams of the crowd, I think it's because I must look stunning. Then I notice something is rising up around me: smoke from fire. Charred bits of black silk swirl into the air, and pearls clatter to the stage. Then all at once, the fire is gone. I come to a stop, wondering if I'm naked and why Cinna has arranged to burn away my wedding dress.

I am not naked. I'm in a dress of the exact design of my wedding dress, only it's the color of coal and made of tiny feathers. Wonderingly, I lift my long, flowing sleeves into the air, and that's when I see myself on the television screen. Clothed in black except for the white patches on my sleeves, or should I say my wings, because Cinna has turned me into a mockingjay.

With a tentative hand Caesar reaches out to touch my headpiece. The white has burned away, leaving a smooth, fitted veil of black that drapes into the neckline of the dress in the back.

"Feathers," says Caesar. "You're like a bird."

"A mockingjay, I think," I say, giving my wings a small flap. "It's the bird on the pin I wear as a token."

A shadow of recognition flickers across Caesar's face, and I can tell he knows that the mockingjay isn't just my token. That it's come to symbolize so much more. That what will be seen as a flashy costume change in the Capitol is resonating in an entirely different way throughout the districts.

"Well, hats off to your stylist. I don't think anyone can argue that that's not the most spectacular thing we've ever seen in an interview. Cinna, I think you better take a bow!" Caesar gestures for Cinna to rise.

He does, and makes a small, gracious bow.

Suddenly I am so afraid for him. What has he done? Something terribly dangerous. An act of rebellion in itself, and he has done it for me. I remember his words…

" _Don't worry. I always channel my emotions into my work. That way I don't hurt anyone but myself."_

…and I'm afraid he has hurt himself beyond repair. The significance of my fiery transformation will not be lost on President Snow.

The audience, who's been stunned into silence, breaks into wild applause. I can barely hear the buzzer that indicates that my three minutes are up. Caesar thanks me and I go back to my seat, my dress now feeling lighter than air.

As I pass Peeta, who's headed for his interview, he does not meet my eyes. I take my seat carefully, but aside from the puffs of smoke here and there, I seem unharmed, so I turn my attention to him.

Caesar and Peeta have been a natural team since they first appeared together a year ago. Their easy give-and-take, comic timing, and ability to segue into heart-wrenching moments, like Peeta's confession of love for me, have made them a huge success with the audience. They effortlessly open with a few jokes about fires and feathers and overcooking poultry. Except, anyone can see that Peeta is preoccupied, so Caesar directs the conversation right into the subject that's on everyone's minds.

"So, Peeta, what was it like when, after all you've been through, you found out about the Quell?" asks Caesar.

"I was in shock. I mean, one minute I'm seeing Katniss looking so beautiful in all these wedding gowns, and the next…" Peeta trails off.

"You realized there was never going to be a wedding?" asks Caesar gently.

Peeta pauses for a long moment, as if deciding something. He looks out at the spellbound audience, then at the floor, then finally up at Caesar. "Caesar, do you think all our friends here can keep a secret?"

An uncomfortable laugh emanates from the audience. What can he mean? Keep a secret from who? Our whole world is watching. "I feel quite certain of it," says Caesar.

"We're already married," says Peeta quietly.

The crowd reacts in astonishment, and I have to bury my face in the folds of my skirt so they cannot see my confusion. Where on earth is he going with this?

"But…how can that be?" asks Caesar.

"Oh, it's not an official marriage. We didn't go to the Justice Building or anything. But we have this marriage ritual in District Twelve. I don't know what it's like in the other districts. But there's this thing we do," says Peeta, and he briefly describes the toasting.

"Were your families there?" asks Caesar.

"No, we didn't tell anyone. Not even Haymitch. And Katniss' mother would never have approved. But you see, we knew if we were married in the Capitol, there wouldn't be a toasting. And neither of us really wanted to wait any longer. So one day, we just did it," Peeta says. "And to us, we're more married than any piece of paper or big party could make us."

"So this was before the Quell?" says Caesar.

"Of course before the Quell. I'm sure we'd never have done it after we knew," says Peeta, starting to get upset. "But who could've seen it coming? No one. We went through the Games, we were victors, everyone seemed so thrilled to see us together, and then out of nowhere—I mean, how could we anticipate a thing like that?"

"You couldn't, Peeta." Caesar puts an arm around his shoulders. "As you say, no one could've. But I have to confess, I'm glad you two had at least a few months of happiness together."

Enormous applause. As if encouraged, I look up from my feathers and let the audience see my tragic smile of thanks. The residual smoke from the feathers has made my eyes teary, which adds a very nice touch.

"I'm not glad," says Peeta. "I wish we had waited until the whole thing was done officially."

This takes even Caesar aback. "Surely even a brief time is better than no time?"

"Maybe I'd think that, too, Caesar," says Peeta bitterly, "if it weren't for the baby."

There. He has done it again, pulling everyone and me up short. Dropped a bomb that wipes out the efforts of every tribute who came before him. Well, maybe not. Maybe this year he has only lit the fuse on a bomb that the victors themselves have been building. Hoping someone would be able to detonate it. Perhaps thinking it would be me in my bridal gown.

As the bomb explodes, it sends accusations of injustice and barbarism and cruelty flying out in every direction. Even the most Capitol-loving, Games-hungry, bloodthirsty person out there can't ignore, at least for a moment, how horrific the whole thing is.

Yet, what is so spectacular about this accomplishment, isn't the reaction, it's that not once did Peeta have to even mention or question the authenticity of the Capitol or Snow or complain about the Games; he only spoke of love.

The audience cannot absorb the news right away. It has to strike them and sink in and be confirmed by other voices before they begin to sound like a herd of wounded animals, moaning, shrieking, calling for help.

I know my face is projected in a tight close-up on the screen, but I do not make any effort to hide it, because or a moment, even I am working through what Peeta has said.

This is my greatest fear. This is the same reason I withdrew from him last night.

Caesar cannot rein in the crowd again, not even when the buzzer sounds.

Peeta nods his good-bye and comes back to his seat without any more conversation.

I can see Caesar's lips moving, but the place is in total chaos and I can't hear a word. Only the blast of the anthem, cranked up so loud I can feel it vibrating through my bones, lets us know where we stand in the program.

I automatically rise and, as I do, I sense Peeta reaching out for me. Tears run down his face as I take his hand.

I look back to the crowd, but the faces of Rue's mother and father swim before my eyes. Their sorrow. Their loss. I turn spontaneously to Chaff and offer my hand. I feel my fingers close around the stump that now completes his arm and hold fast.

Then it happens. Up and down the row, the victors begin to join hands. Some do it right away, like the morphlings, or Wiress and Beetee. Others are unsure but caught up in the demands of those around them, like Brutus and Enorbaria. By the time the anthem plays its final strains, all twenty-four of us stand in one unbroken line in what must be the first public show of unity among the districts since the Dark Days.

You can see the realization of this as the screens begin to pop into blackness. It's too late, though. In the confusion they didn't cut us off in time. Everyone has seen.

There's disorder on the stage now, too, as the lights go out and we're left to stumble back into the Training Center. I've lost hold of Chaff, but Peeta guides me into an elevator. Finnick and Johanna try to join us, but a harried Peacekeeper blocks their way and we shoot upward alone.

The moment we step off the elevator, Peeta grips my shoulders. "There isn't much time, so tell me. Is there anything I have to apologize for?"

"Nothing," I say. It was a big leap to take without my okay, but I am glad I did not know. If I had, I would have worried about the consequence back home.

Somewhere, very far off, is a place called District 12, where my mother and sister and friends will have to deal with the fallout from this night.

Just a brief hovercraft ride away is an arena where, tomorrow, Peeta and I and the other tributes will face our own form of punishment, and even if all of us meet terrible ends, something happened on that stage tonight that cannot be undone. We victors staged our own uprising, and maybe, just maybe, the Capitol won't be able to contain this one.

"You look stunning," Peeta says, quietly, a hand musing the feathers on my headdress. "Cinna is amazing with clothing."

"Yes," I breathe, still afraid for my rebellious stylist. "He's done a lot for me."

That's when I notice his hand moves to grip a chain around his neck. "What's that?"

"Effie gave it to Portia, she put it on me before the interview."

I reach out to retrieve the disk that hangs from the chain around his neck and find that my mockingjay has been engraved on it. "Is this your token?" I ask.

"Yes. I hope you do not mind that I used your mockingjay. I wanted us to match."

"No, of course I don't mind." I force a smile. The fact that Peeta will show up in the arena wearing a mockingjay is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it should give a boost to the rebels in the districts. On the other, it's hard to imagine President Snow will overlook it, and that will make the job of keeping Peeta alive harder.

We're waiting for the others to return, but when the elevator opens, only Haymitch appears. "It's madness out there. Everyone's been sent home and they've canceled the recap of the interviews on television."

Peeta and I hurry to the window and try to make sense of the commotion far below us on the streets. "What are they saying?" Peeta asks. "Are they asking the president to stop the Games?"

"I don't think they know themselves what to ask. The whole situation is unprecedented. Even the idea of opposing the Capitol's agenda is a source of confusion for the people here," says Haymitch. "But there's no way Snow would cancel the Games. You know that, right?"

I do. Of course, he could never back down now. The only option left to him is to strike back and strike back hard.

"The others went home?" I ask.

"They were ordered to. I don't know how much luck they're having getting through the mob," says Haymitch.

"Then we'll never see Effie again," says Peeta. We didn't see her on the morning of the Games last year. "You'll give her our thanks."

“More than that. Really make it special. It's Effie, after all," I say. "Tell her how appreciative we are and how she was the best escort ever and tell her ... tell her we send our love."

For a while we just stand there in silence, delaying the inevitable.

Then Haymitch says it.

"I guess this is where we say our good-byes as well."

"Any last words of advice?" Peeta asks.

"Stay alive," Haymitch says gruffly. That's almost an old joke with us now. He gives us each a quick embrace, and I can tell it's all he can stand. "Go to bed. You need your rest."

I know I should say a whole bunch of things to Haymitch, but I can't think of anything he doesn't already know, really, and my throat is so tight I doubt anything would come out, anyway.

So, once again, I let Peeta speak for us both. "You take care, Haymitch," he says.

We cross the room, but in the doorway, Haymitch's voice stops us. "Katniss, when you're in the arena," he begins. Then he pauses. He's scowling in a way that makes me sure I've already disappointed him.

"What?" I ask defensively.

"You just remember who the enemy is," Haymitch tells me. "That's all. Now go on. Get out of here."

We walk down the hallway. Peeta wants to stop by his room to shower off the makeup and meet me in a few minutes, but I won't let him. I'm certain that if a door shuts between us, it will lock, and I'll have to spend the night without him. I tell him to shower in my room.

I know we should sleep. Except I cannot help but think this is my last night with Peeta, in which we will be really, truly alone. I will never have this again.

When Peeta returns from his shower, smelling of soap, I pull him down into bed and waste no time. What do I tell him? What does he want to hear? Should I remind him that this is our final night, or does he know? Is that why he keeps kissing me back just as heatedly?

As he finally manages to get me out of my mockingjay dress, I stop him. I sit on my knees at the edge of the bed and he stands before me.

He stares down at me, patient, wondering.

I still don't know what to say to him.

Instead, I give up and kiss him with recklessness.

We fall into the bed, and the barriers quickly fall. The hunger and fire is all consuming.

Peeta does not move beyond any previous boundaries, and does not say he wants more, but the want I see in his eyes is enough to make me feel guilty. I want it, too, physically, but mentally all of those walls that I have built, cemented with my beliefs, still stand strong.

That is, they _were_ until another thought occurs to me.

I have a hand moving against the bulge in his underwear. Peeta’s eyes are closed, and he looks so beautiful. His cheeks are flushed, his lips swollen, those memorizing eyelashes against his cheekbones. The sound of his ragged breathing makes my legs feel weak, and fuels me with an empowerment I have never known.

I think of how I will miss him.

After these Games, he will live on; heartbroken, but alive. He will have to march through the aftermath of these Hunger Games, and I will be cold in a coffin. I know he will never forget me. I know he will savor these moments between us… and then I think, for no apparent reason, of Finnick. A young, strong, beautiful tribute, just like Peeta. My mind goes to the rumors about such tributes. The way they are turned out to the Capitol citizens who pay the best price. Peeta and I as the star-crossed lovers have been able to stave off such a fate... but, finally, horrifyingly, I realize if I am gone, Snow would not hesitate.

I know I cannot prevent this. I know I still want Peeta to win these Games, even with this threat looming over his head. There is nothing I can do to stop the inevitable. I feel sick to my stomach at the thought of someone else, let alone a Capitolite, touching Peeta the way I have.

There is nothing... nothing, except to take away some of the fire's burn.

I want him first, _all_ of him.

I cannot let them take that from me, and I want him to think of me, every time he's with those others.

As selfish as the thought is, it is enough.

Peeta notices almost instantly that there is something different about my movements. He draws back to examine my face, and I finally know what I want to say to him.

"You're mine," I say, _and I am yours_.

I tug at his underclothes and they are quickly discarded. I toss mine aside, a sudden smile on my face. I am eager, I realize. Eager to experience this with him.

"I am yours," Peeta whispers to me. He leans down close to my face. I can see the love in his eyes, the trust, the kindness…

It is enough to make me breathless.

He eases into it. He kisses me and rubs me with his hand. He is gentle with me, and I find myself wiggling impatiently against him.

Finally, he pushes into me, and I cannot help the sound that escapes me.

It hurts, a little, but the pleasure is there as well. Mostly it feels obscene, but a _good_ obscene, like intrusive and warm.

I move my hips with his. The pain quickly transforms, becoming a tantalizing, burning ache. Both good and bad, the way a scalding bath soothes and sears at the same time.

Rapidly both our wants and tempos grow. I forget to think of anything else. I forgot the reason. I just look up into his face and admire him. I lose myself to the burning, aching, throbbing. I feel as though my pleasure will never stop, that it will continue to ebb and flow and wash over me, until suddenly, it is as if I am pulled under the tide of it. I grab at his chest, and I feel as if the pleasure is lightning through my body.

Soon after, Peeta cries out, and I can feel the warmth spread inside of me.

Our bodies are drenched in sweat, and I kiss him, before anything else can be said.

I lay there savoring the moment, before I am forced to consider the guilt, and the awful reason I even consented to this.

As we lay there, catching our breath, I feel more than sensual warmth leaking out of me and on my thighs. I feel gross, and since Peeta has already had his shower, I get mine in peace.

Once I return clean, we spend the rest of the night holding each other, in some halfway land between dream and waking and endorphins. Neither of us speak. Perhaps we are both afraid to disturb the other in the hope that we'll be able to store up a few precious minutes of rest with the time that is left.

A little before dawn Peeta caresses the side of my hip. He says only this, "I love you."

I say nothing.

Cinna and Portia arrive with the dawn, and I know Peeta will have to go. Tributes enter the arena alone.

"See you soon," he says.

"See you soon," I answer.

Cinna, who will help dress me for the Games, accompanies me to the roof. I'm about to mount the ladder to the hovercraft when I remember. "I didn't say good-bye to Portia."

"I'll tell her," says Cinna.

The electric current freezes me in place on the ladder until the doctor injects the tracker into my left forearm. Now they will always be able to locate me in the arena.

The hovercraft takes off, and I look out the windows until they black out. Cinna keeps pressing me to eat and, when that fails, to drink. I manage to keep sipping water, thinking of the days of dehydration that almost killed me last year. Thinking of how I will need my strength to keep Peeta alive.

When we reach the Launch Room at the arena, Cinna re-braids my hair down my back and helps me dress over simple undergarments.

This year's tribute outfit is a thick long-sleeved turtleneck, made of wool and, after Cinna's input, spandex. The pants are no different from the shirt; black, tight, and thick. A belt, which is just simple enough to tuck a knife under, added and then my shoes, black also, reaching to nearly mid-shin, and made mostly of rubber.

"What do you think?" I ask, holding the accompanying jacket out for Cinna to examine.

He frowns as he rubs the thick stuff between his fingers. "I don't know. It might offer protection from cold and water, but the wool would only absorb water, and it could get rather heavy."

Cinna seems more interested in my boots though, than anything else. He examines them as I pull on the clothes. I wince only a few times. I find I am a little sore from Peeta and I’s activities last night.

"Look," Cinna says, and I move to see what he's pointing out. "See these grooves in the soles?" I nod. "They have a grip and that may mean climbing. Mountains possibly."

I could just picture the arena now. A mountainous, cliff infected place with fierce waterfalls and down traveling streams, dovetailing Gamemaker induced heavy rain and possible snowfalls, and freezing winds.

"Oh, I almost forgot this." Cinna takes my gold mockingjay pin from his pocket and fixes it to the outfit.

"My dress was fantastic last night," I say. It was fantastic and reckless, but Cinna must know that.

"I thought you might like it," he says with a tight smile.

There is a knock at the door. Confused, Cinna answers and a Peacekeeper stands there in the hall. In his hands is a fanny-pack: black and zipped closed. "For the tribute."

Cinna takes it. "What is this about?"

"A part of the outfits. It is meant to be passed out only minutes beforehand. It is not to be opened until the gong has gone off." The Peacekeeper motions for me to get on the metal plate, just as the voice overhead announces the same thing.

The man does not leave.

Cinna walks me over to the circular metal plate and attaches the fanny-pack to my waist. "Remember, girl on fire," he says, quietly. "I'm still betting on you." He kisses my forehead and steps back as the glass cylinder slides down around me.

"Thank you," I say, although he probably cannot hear me.

I lift my chin, holding my head high the way he always tells me to, and wait for the plate to rise.

It does not. I look at Cinna, raising my eyebrows for an explanation. He just gives his head a slight shake, as perplexed as I am.

I look to the blank faced Peacekeeper.

Suddenly the door behind them bursts open and two more Peacekeepers spring into the room. Two pin Cinna's arms behind him and cuff him while the third hits him in the temple with such force he's knocked to his knees. They keep hitting him with metal-studded gloves, opening gashes on his face and body.

I am screaming my head off, banging on the unyielding glass, trying to reach him.

The Peacekeepers ignore me completely as they drag Cinna's limp body from the room. All that's left are the smears of blood on the floor.

Sickened and terrified, I feel the plate begin to rise.

I move away from the glass just in time.

Something seems to be wrong with my vision. Everything is dark. I squint down at my feet and see nothing: not the metal plate, nor the climbing boots.

I raise my head and realize there's nothing wrong with my eyes. This is the arena.

We are underground, and it is pitch black. It is cold and damp, and even the oxygen tastes thin.

I can only form one clear thought: _this is no place for a girl on fire._


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!
> 
> I hope this brings some of you joy.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, let the Seventy-fifth Hunger Game begin!"

The voice of Claudius Templesmith, the Hunger Games announcer, hammers against my ears.

It echoes so unbearably loud that I cover them.

I have less than a minute to get my bearings before the gong sounds and the tributes will be free to move off their metal plates. But move where?

I have trouble thinking straight. The image of Cinna beaten and bloody consumes me. Where is he now? What are they doing to him? Torturing him? Killing him? Turning him into an Avox?

His assault was staged to unhinge me, the same way Darius' presence in my quarters was meant to, and it _has_ unhinged me. All I want to do is collapse on my plate.

I have to be strong, and if not for myself, then for Cinna. If not for Cinna, then for Peeta.

I grit my teeth, straighten, and force myself to be a player in the Games.

_Where are you?_

I can still make no sense of my surroundings. 

_Where are you?_

I demand an answer of myself and slowly the world around me comes into focus… not visually, but with my other senses. The air is cold and damp. I can smell moss and clay. To my left I can hear shifting and know a tribute stands there. Water sounds; a dripping from above, the sound of a moving stream. I hear the tap of a victor's impatient foot against metal. Another victor mutters uncertainly to themselves.

How are we supposed to fight like this? Groping around in the dark?

I do not even know where the Cornucopia is. I can only assume that it is dead ahead of me.

Would the supplies be scattered around it, like last year, or will they be inside, drawing us into a trap? I need a weapon. Except, how? How do I find a weapon _and_ Peeta in complete darkness?

My hands are trembling. I grip my jacket in an attempt to steady them.

The gong sounds.

There is the scuttle of people's feet. Their voices echo overhead; the sounds bounce against the cave walls and make it almost impossible to location their origin.

I stumble off my platform, head swiveling at every tiny noise.

_What do I do?_

There are sounds of fighting now: struggling, shouting, metal brushing against metal, rolling objects across the ground, screaming.

_What do I do?_

Someone runs by me.

I flinch and take on a stance as close to hand-to-hand combat as I can manage. Except no one jumps at me. They are gone.

I take a few steps forward.

My foot catches on something, and I fall, barely having any time to break the blow with my hands. The floor is uneven and rocky.

Immediately I am back up. The sound of fighting has increased, and I must be nearing it, as well as the Cornucopia. But how can they be fighting in the dark?

I struggle forward, tripping again, into a puddle. My hand stings, but not badly.

I stand, feeling dizzy by the complete darkness around me. I start to step backward, suddenly afraid of being too close to a hostile and –

"Hmph."

A person slams into me. We both grip the other’s jacket and fall to the ground.

They struggle against me, but then, I feel a brush of hair against my cheek and a warm hand firmly grips my wrist.

"Your pack, Katniss," Cecelia whispers to me, and then she's gone, disappearing into the darkness.

_My pack?_

I reach for the fanny-pack. I had forgotten about it, after everything that had happened to Cinna. My head is still swimming. Why would Cecelia tell me? Why would she move right over me so quickly without a struggle or without wanting to ally?

I unzip the pack and extract the one, small object from inside.

They feel just like regular sunglasses, but I remember. I remember what Rue told me. I put them on within the breath, blink, and I can _see_.

There is a slight tint to everything, but I can still see all of the colors.

I take in the arena for the first time and my heart sinks.

We are in a cave. The room we have all started in is large, with formations hanging from the ceiling from years of erosion and water movements. There is a stream on the far side of the passage, with the occasional puddle. The Cornucopia sits in the center of it, on an elevated platform with multiple steps up to it. Overhead, I see no indication that there is an exit or that we are not ten miles underground.

At the far edges of the room are additional passages of all manner; some small, large, slender, wide. That's it then. A tunnel of mazes and darkness, and completely treacherous without glasses.

At the Cornucopia, I see Finnick throw Gloss down the steps of the platform on the far side. On the right, Finnick immediately turns to Enorbaria, his trident against her knife.

I race forward, knowing that my best chance to get a bow and arrow is now. They are both distracted with each other, and I see no one else converging from my side of the Cornucopia, although the gold neck blocks a good portion of my view.

I do not let the thought of adversaries slow me down. The only way to get rid of them is with a weapon. I am not in any way shape or form about to throw myself into a fist fight.

Most of the loot seems to be piled inside of the Cornucopia. My eyes instantly focus on a golden bow and I yank it free.

I pull an arrow from the sheath that's still wedged in the pile and arm my bow, turning on the balls of my feet.

Finnick, huffing, stands a few yards behind me, with a trident poised to attack. A net dangles from his other hand. He's smiling a little, but the muscles in his upper body are rigid in anticipation.

"You like the arena?" he says.

"You look like you do," I say, indicating with my chin to the Careers, struggling to right themselves all the way at the bottom of the steps. "Must have played king of the hill a lot as kid, huh?"

"Not particularly." He smiles. "They must have built this place especially for you."

This takes a moment to sink in, and suddenly, it seems like it.

You would think someone from the coal mining district would have an advantage here, being in their element, but you would be wrong. Even though a majority of our schooling focuses on the study of coal, mining, and underground safety, that is nowhere near the real thing. Only adults can work in the mines.

For a moment we are frozen, sizing each other up, our weapons, our skill.

Finnick suddenly grins. "Lucky thing we're allies. Right?"

I am about to let my arrow fly, hoping it finds his heart before the trident impales me, when he shifts his hand and something on his wrist catches my attention. A solid-gold bangle patterned with flames. The same one I remember on Haymitch's wrist the morning I began training. I briefly consider that Finnick could have stolen it to trick me, but somehow, I know this is not the case.

Haymitch gave it to him. As a signal to me. An order, really. To trust Finnick.

I can hear other footsteps approaching. I must decide at once.

"Right!" I snap.

Even though Haymitch is my mentor and trying to keep me alive, this angers me. Why didn't he tell me he'd made this arrangement before? Probably because Peeta and I had ruled out allies. Now Haymitch has chosen one on his own.

"Duck!" Finnick commands in such a powerful voice, so different from his usual seductive purr, that I do. His trident goes whizzing over my head and there's a sickening sound of impact as it finds its target.

The man from District 5, the drunk who threw up on the sword-fighting floor, sinks to his knees as Finnick frees the trident from his chest.

"Don't trust One and Two," Finnick says.

There's no time to question this. I work the sheath of arrows free. "Each take one side?" I say.

He nods, and I dart around the pile.

A few steps down, approximately twenty yards off, Enorbaria and Gloss are approaching. Either they're slow climbers or the fall Finnick delivered has stunted them. Sometimes it's not good to consider too many scenarios. They're here now, facing me head on.

I hear Finnick shout, "Anything useful?"

I quickly scan the pile on my side and find maces, swords, bows and arrows, tridents, knives, spears, axes, metallic objects I have no name for ... and nothing else.

"Weapons!" I call back. "Nothing but weapons!"

"Same here," he confirms. "Grab what you want and let's go!"

I shoot an arrow at Enorbaria, but she's expecting it and dives to the side before it can find its mark. Gloss isn't quite as swift, and I sink an arrow into his calf.

I sling an extra bow and a second sheath of arrows over my body, slide two long knives and an awl into my belt, and meet up with Finnick at the front of the pile.

"Do something about that, would you?" he says.

I see Brutus barreling toward us, bloody from his fall. I shoot at him and he manages to dodge the arrow, but he loses his footing in doing so and slips down the steps again.

I reload, hoping to sink a fatal in him and eliminate him early in these games, but Finnick suddenly grabs my elbow.

He points to below.

Peeta is struggling with the man from District 9.

I raise my bow without thought.

The man drops dead with an arrow buried in his temple.

I clamor down the steps of the Cornucopia and reach Peeta's side.

"Are you okay?"

Finnick follows me over. "Give him one of your knifes," he says, looking uncertainly up at the Cornucopia. "We won't be able to get him any weapons, now."

That's true enough. The Cornucopia is a devastatingly easy place to defend, rather than to overcome, as Finnick and I have just proven. The four Careers have formed a stance around the weapons and going back is not a choice.

I take a knife off my belt and hold it hilt-out toward Peeta. He takes it, and I see a bruise forming on his jaw and his knuckles are ruffled. I should have shot the man sooner. Better yet, I should have been more prepared… I should have known about the glasses… I could have lost him…

I shake my head to clear it. None of that matters now.

"Nice to see you again," Peeta says. He ducks to place a quick kiss on my cheek.

"Like wise," I retort. "We've got allies."

"I noticed." Peeta spares Finnick a glance. They share a nod. "Remind me, did we make deals with anyone else?"

"Only Mags, I think." I nod toward the old woman making her way toward us, avoiding the puddles and cracks in the floor.

"Well, I can't leave Mags behind," says Finnick. "She's one of the few people who actually likes me."

"I've got no problem with Mags," I say.

"Katniss wanted her on the first day," says Peeta.

"Katniss has remarkably good judgment," says Finnick.

"Look," Peeta says, abruptly. "Some of them still haven't figured it out."

He's right. While it is nice to know I was not the only victor to go blundering about without a clue, for all of Panem to watch and laugh over, this pleasure only lasts a moment. Those who have not checked their pack are the morphlings, who crawl across the floor on their hands and knees, and the female from District 9.

I feel sad for them. I pity them and the sudden dark death ahead.

Then I see Beetee attempting to creep along the side of the Cornucopia.

I almost ask Finnick to wait, to get Beetee and Wiress and take them with us, but Beetee's too far away and I do not even know where Wiress is. For all I know, Finnick would kill them as quickly as he did the tribute from 5, so instead I suggest we move on.

I hand Peeta a bow and a sheath of arrows for him to hold and keep the rest for myself. But Mags tugs on my sleeve and babbles on until I've given the awl to her. Pleased, she clamps the handle between her gums and reaches her arms up to Finnick. He tosses his net over his shoulder, hoists Mags on top of it, grips his tridents in his free hand, and we agree to move out.

This turns out to be a dilemma.

The only way out of this room is to take one of the side passages. But which one is the best to take? What other hidden dangers lace through these caves? Where did all of the others flee?

Finally, Mags points us toward one near our left. No one questions her. She's the only one who's been brave enough to make the decision.

The passage is wide and easy to maneuver, but it quickly begins to climb upwards. We are all winded by the climb, especially since the cave is rough and gravelly. Moss and vines grow thickly along the floor and walls, making the trek slippery.

Peeta takes the lead. I make Finnick go second because even though he's the most powerful, he's got his hands full with Mags. I make up the rear.

Between the sparse oxygen and the incline, we only make it a mile or two before we are all in need of a break.

We can still hear a faint echoing of what is going on at the Cornucopia; more screaming, more murder, and well, what did I think? That the victors' chain of locked hands last night would result in some sort of universal truce in the arena? No, I never believed that. But I guess I had hoped people might show some ... what?

Restraint? Reluctance, at least. Before they jumped right into massacre mode. 

_You all knew each other,_ I think. _You acted like friends._

I have only one real friend here, and he is not from District 4.

I let a drop of water on the wall distract me while I come to a decision. Despite the bangle, I should just get it over with and shoot Finnick. There's really no future in this alliance. He's too dangerous to let go.

Now, when we have this tentative trust, may be my only chance to kill him. I could easily shoot him in the back as we walk. It's despicable, of course, but will it be any more despicable if I wait? Know him better? Owe him more?

No, this is the time.

I take one last look at Peeta with the blood on his sleeves from his fight with District 9 to harden my resolve, and then slide an arrow discreetly into my bow.

When I move to raise it, I find Finnick's kept pace with my thoughts.

As if he knows what I have been thinking and how it will have affected me. He has one of his tridents raised in a casually defensive position.

"What do you think is going on back there, Katniss? Have they all joined hands? Taken a vow of nonviolence? Tossed the weapons to the floor in defiance of the Capitol?" Finnick asks.

"No," I say.

"No," Finnick repeats. "Because whatever happened in the past is in the past. And no one in this arena was a victor by chance." He eyes Peeta for a moment. "Except maybe Peeta."

Finnick knows what Haymitch and I know. About Peeta, and him being truly, deep-down better than the rest of us. Finnick took out that tribute from District 5 without blinking an eye. How long did I take to turn deadly? I shot to kill when I targeted Enorbaria and Gloss and Brutus. Peeta would have at least attempted negotiations. But to what end? Finnick's right. I'm right. The people in this arena were not crowned for their compassion.

I hold his gaze, weighing his speed against my own. The time it will take to send an arrow through his brain versus the time his trident will reach my body.

I can see him, waiting for me to make the first move, and calculating if he should block first or go directly for an attack.

I can feel we've both about worked it out when Peeta steps deliberately between us.

"So what do you think of these glasses?" he asks.

 _Move, you idiot,_ I think, but he remains planted firmly between us.

"Honestly, I'm surprised they gave us them," I answer.

"Then let's keep moving. Maybe we can find a place with light," he says.

So far there's been no sign of anything to suggest that, and I severely doubt that the Gamemakers would be so generous, but when Peeta hopes for something, there's no harm in at least trying.

"And water," I say, dropping my bow all the way to the ground. I think of my first arena and nearly dying of dehydration. "There has to be a source around here somewhere, other than the stream in the Cornucopia and these puddles."

"Better find it soon," says Finnick. "We need to be undercover when the others come hunting us tonight."

_We. Us. Hunting._

All right, maybe killing Finnick would be a little premature. He's been helpful so far. He does have Haymitch's stamp of approval, and who knows what the night will hold? If worse comes to worst, I can always kill him in his sleep. So I let the moment pass, and so does Finnick.

The absence of a substantial supply of water intensifies my thirst.

I keep a sharp eye out as we continue our trek upward, but with no luck.

After a certain point, more passages begin to branch off from ours. Peeta insists we should follow the one we have started with.

I do not blame him. Some of the other passages make me uneasy. No passage is the same to another. Some are smooth. Some are steep and sharp. Others are only big enough to crawl through.

"Maybe we could try a smaller tunnel next time, that goes further down. Find an underground river or something,” I say.

In front of us the passage comes to a dead end.

At first, it appears to be just that, but I see the problem before anyone else does.

My warning cry is just reaching my lips when Peeta takes another step.

Peeta gasps as he steps over the edge of the cliff.

There's a sharp sound. Some of the rocks near his back leg fall away.

Peeta flails, but it's already too late. His legs are swept out from under him and he falls over the edge of the cliff.

As he falls, we all hear his cry: “Katniss!”

I rush over, dropping my weapons and pushing Finnick out of my way. But still, I am too late.

“Peeta?” I call.

There is a faint echo from below.

"Peeta!" I scream now. I am aware that the sound echoes loudly around us. Enough for the Careers to hear, but I do not care.

I hold my breath, waiting. I wait for the sound of Peeta response. I hope that the bottom of this cliff is near and close enough to hear.

Instead, I hear only silence.


End file.
